Congrats @StarNow on getting acquired by @backstage . You guys simply built the best produt from your corner of the world 🌏 | I’ve done a couple successful collabs from StarNow.co.uk/Cerulean | #SavvyIndie recommended — #casting #arts

Congrats Edem for coming in hard with Creator Care 2nd interview w/ very #SavvyIndie @AudioMack VP | some “Swan Centre” commenter’s ‘begged’ me to upload it there | maybe I’ll distro #SmalltownDreamer there now DistroKid allow manual linking — #streaming 🎵 #arts

Final nail in ⚰️ for #YouTube as free community 😢 | #Google forces ads on all channels without sharing 💸 | Self-respecting small businesses & artists: time offer video content ad+distraction-free on Vimeo (25% off 🔗) — #DeleteGoogle #SavvyIndie #arts

Quick #AirTable tip: Best way to duplicate table: Sync, then Unsync — it retains field type vs. CSV import converts all to ‘Long Text’ | + it’s Free forever (Apr ‘21 phase-out binned) — #SavvyIndie #tech

Album distro: @BandLab launches Albums | @BandCamp competitor with more modern UI & 0% commission | but can’t see good community for indie artists like Bandcamp, seems mostly viral hip-hop — @DistroKid should add store — #savvyindie #music 🎵 #arts

View from cassette tape ordering for Smalltown Dreamer! Apparently many major label streaming-focussed contracts still include this concept, even though there’s no ‘back of the van’ for streams to get lost/broken in like tapes!! — #savvyindie #music 🎵 #arts

Fellow British indies: make sure to vote in #PPL elections if you’re a member (free), to represent our interests, not just #BigMusic — here’s my quick takes if you need a steer — #ukmusic #independentartist #SavvyIndie #arts

-

Not #SavvyIndie : when coming across more mindful online users, throwing the same copy-paste at them #SessionsLive | #MoveSlowlyAndFixThings | #arts

switching from single to double quotation marks on song titles, cos @KhanAcademy said so #SavvyIndie | Go set premiere reminder for ‘island’, sorry I mean “island” now: Ceru.li/island | 🎵 #arts

Listen: The Power Of A Good Lunch

6 (feedback) skilled hosts would hand-over 1st question slightly sooner.
10 you never regret cooking a good meal.
14 link to Peterson rule: “treat yourself like someone you’re looking after”.
17 worker rights for self-employed. Requires schizo mindset lol.
20 freezer: fish fingers, bread, herbs. Love fridge tupperware, but I haven’t ventured to freezer territory yet.
21 amazing having Rebecca flex her food journo muscles.
23 Sig’s top 5 ingredients: citrus fruit (lemon) to squeeze, oily tinned fish (mackerel - is there high quality?), eggs (already on it!), seasonal produce + umami/savoury depth: olives, sundried tomato paste, feta/parmesan (which is lower lactose?).
25 stuff on toast: Cannelini beans, garlic&chili cooked kale/broccoli.
28 solo eating out: pick bar seat 👍.
33 good old-fashioned ‘thinking ahead’!

Also relying on a single platform is not a #SavvyIndie strategy. See how fickle TikTok’s algo is | #arts

Apple estimate average pay per stream at less than a penny. Then remember that on average artists only take home 13% of streamings. #SavvyIndie artists starting out: do not rely on streaming to make a living. #arts

So @Spotify finally partnering with @Musixmatch to display synced #lyrics: good for #songwriters. But was their price that Artists need Spotify Premium to Sync Lyrics on Musixmatch? #SavvyIndie 🎵 #arts

Never again #distro @SpinnUpCom by @UMG | No Support | Link Landing Page still not up on 11am of release day (made own: Ceru.LinkFi.re).. better free options: Distro.SavvyIndie.com ! #SavvyIndie | 🎵 #musicindustry #arts

YouTube playlists on CeruleanSounds.com went down yesterday. Felt silly until saw fellow anagram 🎵 @Halsey had that in common too. And now they’re all back! :D | Halsey hun: let me install an SSL cert on your site pls tho 🔐 #SavvyIndie | #arts

#ComeHome 📊 (4/4: first month) #SavvyIndie | Won’t “travel round the earth” without the help of humans! 🙏 blog.w4rner.com/2021/03/1… 🎧 #arts

It’s been 4 weeks since release!

🎥

Metrics are positive all the way from impressions onward, but simply struggling for impressions 👀 :

If you enjoyed the music video please share it on your social channels, it simply needs more visibility 🦺 !

🎧

Still stuck on… wait for it… 6!! Hey, at least it’s not 0!
Looks like my pessimism about neglect of indie artists in my “Stream On” 🔗 review was justified. Feted “algo” clearly isn’t taking care of young Cerulean: please humans share the track with humans!

🤳 #AroundWorld80GreenScreens

Hit goal to wrap the first month with a mini compilation video:

Thanks for taking part: @policyglot @bhargavvader @GeorgiaMaeMusic1 @BeastlyBoyBen Proud of these pals for braving the Reels tech for the first time.

Now let’s see if we get to 80 by the end of the summer if I can play the song live to actually get it heard!
Simply chuck a picture of where you’d fly to in a hot air balloon while lip syncing the song on Reels!

What’s Next?

Single: ‘Ever After’

Release: mid-April, stay posted!

Laurence Warner aka

Cerulean 'Come Home' Out Now! Schedule Call Sent encryptable via ProtonMail

Forget the splashy landing page with its right-tail examples (average estimates of revenue swings are more in the order of 20% than 200%).

The fact is most of you won’t be affected by this news, as stated by CelebrityAccess:

For artists to collect user-centric royalties you have to be a paid Pro Unlimited or Repost by SoundCloud subscriber which costs $144 a year and $30 per year respectively. “If you choose to revert back to a Free account, your Premier monetization benefits will be terminated.” Third-party distribution via CDBaby, TuneCore, DistroKid, and other services is not an option to receive fan-powered royalties.

—

But user-centric royalties may be globally adopted soon, so worth understanding.

My basic understanding is this:
1. it’s less easily manipulable by bots. If a bot goes and streams a million times on an artist, it won’t be stealing share from everyone’s subscription, only diluting it’s (minute $10) subscription
1. artists listened to by people who listen to less tracks will earn more:

I can imagine 3 major listener-types who would listen to less tracks:

i. Long-tracks. Like classical music.
ii. Never stream as background music. So more mindful, dedicated listeners.
iii. Supplement streaming listening with other listening: this could skew with the above towards vinyl heads, live music fans, afficionados with multiple streaming subs etc.

In short, artist’s whose audiences are more likely to be plugging in for full tracks of deeper listening experience will likely do better. Again, the magnitude of changes will be small, around 20% or so.

Genre-wise: the gains are likely to be in niche genres, whereas rap/hip-hop with its <3min songs on buzzy playlists lose out.
Within-genres: deeper, more lyrically complex songs will probably do better.

So I reckon Cerulean would do better, but MC Beastly would probably lose out! It’s a wash-out for me!

—

What about you? Do you think your music will perform better or worse in user-centric streaming?
And if better, do you believe in SoundCloud enough to pay for their distribution platform?
Link to this article in social and \@CeruleanSounds to let me know!

—

Related news: I’m developing a database of distributors for SavvyIndie.com. It will be interactive, and up-to-date with crowdsourced info.
I will be releasing a subset of the database covering only free distributors for free publicly pre-launch at Distro.SavvyIndie.com. That one won’t contain SoundCloud Repost ($30/yr), but I may add a filter on user-centric royalties if other distributors adopt.

🎥 Still great per viewer feedback, but reach has slowed. If you enjoyed the music video please share it with your friends: ceru.li/come-home !

🎧 Spotify streams on singles are super variable. Previous Cerulean Sounds (“Let Me Go” by @spitfire_bars ) by this point had cleared 3k streams, whilst this one is stuck on… wait for it… 6!! Yup: that’s what they don’t want you to see with their polite <1,000 airbrushing of their neglect of indie artists. I kid you not!! I reviewed “Stream On” #StreamOn @spotify’s Apple-style media- event on Monday. 🔗 in Ceru.Li/nk to read my timestamped comments, but the tl;dr #SavvyIndie conclusion: things don’t look set to get any better for wildly unequal outcomes and buried independent artist content :( 📸(2) Gonna be looking to my fave humans & day1s to champion my debut album (including this lead single), because the feted “algo” clearly isn’t taking care of young Cerulean!

🤳 #AroundWorld80GreenScreens After re-setting goal to just doing a mini compilation video. Speaking of relying on my fave humans, super grateful to say had a couple more folks take part: @policyglot @bhargavvader and am up to 11 total 📸(1) Proud of these fellas, as well as Ben for braving the Reels tech for the first time. Go run ‘em up from my 🌎🌍🌏 story highlights and cheer them on in the comments!

Last night tonight to be included! Let’s see if we can get to 15! Chuck a picture of where you’d fly to in a hot air balloon while lip syncing the song on Reels! 🇬🇧 After Monday’s news, hey maybe we won’t even need a hot air balloon soon ✈️ !!

To make up for Apple copying streaming, Spotify copy Apple’s virtual media event!
Watch-back, and read along my timestamped comments, given that they banned them on YT! Would love to hear what you make of mine!

MUSIC 28:30 People are listening to people across borders more. Can I just question whether that’s a good thing? Social communities are already dislocated enough by Covid, what we could do with is more hyper-localisation pls. (This is speaking from experience of the terrible listener - conversion rate on the thousands of Japanese & Australian streams I had on the MC Beastly track “Let me go”)

33:00 “On Our Radar” Program

35:00 “Those artists are all gonna be Superstars 🇺🇸😎” - Joji already had that sort of bland fame and eschewed it for artistry pal

36:00 Enhanced Album

37:40 That’s brave mentioning Taylor Swift, as if she isn’t one of Spotify’s most reluctant artists!!

38:30 Spotify is getting a Stories style feature now: “Clips” 🙄

40:00 can someone explain how Nija is able to have a dope (non-legal) songwriter name?

41:00 Spotify gets a Tidal Master style hi-fi: “Hi-Fi” 🙄 Trust them to copy Apple & roll-out techy pop’s poster boy FINNEAS (btw did I mention I can write bedroom pop like him?)

43:40 SoundTrap Capture as Apple Music Memos (discontinued) replacement?

44:30 I might actually try use SoundBetter to seek producer

PODCASTS (skipped - I’ll simply mention I’m proud to have been one of the Spotify Beta podcasts using Anchor in 2018. I’m now focussing my talk on Clubhouse)

DISCOVERABILITY 67:20 acknowledges ML-alone just amplifies BS trends: announces new phrase: “algotorial”.

69:00 new algo playlist: “X Mix”.

MONETIZATION 83:00 Music industry gonna grow again through digital advertising

84:00 Streaming Ad Insertion (SAI) after buying Megaphone, rolled-out to Anchor

97:00 Smashing borders! Yay! Hmmm sync placement opportunity for “Come Home” Spotify? Instead of just giving me 10 streams?!

SHOW 97:40 “we’ve been in audio-only for a decade” - Daniel Ek trying to head-off Clubhouse

104:00 When Spotify gets to flex being the coolest tech company: roll-out Springsteen, Biebs.. & Barack?! Holla at Biebs going #AroundWorld80GreenScreens

CONCLUSION For Big Music: if Ben Evans is correct that consumer tech is now more about tapping pop culture trends than good tech, Spotify look set to be dynamic enough to hold off Big Tech’s (The 2 As) challenges on being tech gateway for BigMusic. For Small Indie: I wouldn’t put much faith in Spotify, as the reality is you’re at the mercies of their (not necessarily good) tech. Diversify as much as possible outside the platform (Bandcamp & beyond), and double-down on any virality you achieve on it.

🎥 Still 100% 👍 Plus above average view duration. Especially on drone sections like shown (1), so props to my first-timer 🎥 Dad for that ✈️ 🔗 top of Ceru.Li/nk : Go run it up now! Thanks to those who have shared to help others enjoy it too! This one can go “travel round the earth” if it gets the right push!

🎧 Curious for feedback on Spotify Canvas Video flying through the ⛅️. I decided to go for something ambient, rather than my face on an 8 second loop, but lmk if it’s too boring! Any fellow Apple Music users can see Synced Lyrics, but I’ve also now made that experience freely available on YouTube (2) 🔗 📸 to check that out. Lmk if you’ve got a fave lyric! (couple of folks have already mentioned the 🇰🇵 line).

🤳 Still only on one other entry than mine, so unlikely we’ll get to 80 by next Thurs. Still encourage folks to play around with the Green Screen feature on Reels & TikTok! It’s surprisingly powerful, and I believe this sort of content is the future of music interaction in the absence of live shows.

#YouTube acting like Captain Tom’s family & hiding nasty comments 🙏 #DontFeedTheTrolls #SavvyIndie #Arts

Added “Come Home” (https://Ceru.Li/sten-come-home) to @DistroKid ’s 2 near services: Africa’s @BoomplayMusic and 1st stream-safe service @Pretzel_Rocks. Anyone tried Pretzel? Does it help with IG Live too? #SavvyIndie 🎵 #distro #arts

Media: heard about this viral TikTok hit #DriversLicense out of nowhere?! | Me: “Oh it’s a @Disney star from #LA who’s already signed to @Interscope” | It’s 💯 + needs to be 🦻, but 📣 actual #indie #artists too: we NEED your support! #SavvyIndie #arts