Let's face it, marketing and promoting anything, much less music, is tough these days in an already saturated market. That's how people like marketing guru Seth Godin make such a great living selling volumes of marketing books. So how does one little musical artist in the world get promoted to millions overnight?
The Era of MySpace Records?
It's called MySpace Records and four artists are a part of it: Mickey Avalon, Sherwood, Hollywood Undead, and Kate Voegele. Most people probably didn't know about the existence of MySpace records until Monday night around 8:00 pm when the bulletin from MySpace's infamous Tom went out on the original social networking powerhouse.
Tom's bulletin about MySpace Records artist Mickey Avalon went out to what was, at the time, 158,969,747 members of the social networking site. Not a bad way to go about the act of music marketing and promotion! Who else can blast out a news bulletin about their artist to that many human beings with ears at one shot?
Avalon's record label on his MySpace page is listed as "Shoot To Kill Music/MySpace/Interscope." Tom's bulletin about him contains a video of Avalon doing a rap on San Francisco's LIVE 105 - one of the greatest radio stations in America to break a record. An artist on LIVE 105, is already getting the respect of the music industry and the gatekeepers of hit records, but a MySpace bulletin from Tom never hurt anyone.
Mickey Avalon Makes New Friends
At the time Tom's bulletin was sent Monday night, Avalon had 208,022 friends. Today, his count was up to 210,578, so since that bulletin went out, Avalon was able to pick up 2,556 fans. How else can you get over two thousand new fans in just a couple days without too terribly much effort?
Some Music Marketing and Promotion Rules Never Fail
It also brings to mind something else about music marketing and promotion - it's not enough to just have a MySpace artist page anymore. It's still about who you know in the music business and Tom is obviously someone to know now, so it's still about who you know in the record industry. It's also about raw talent as much as it ever was.
Avalon and the Inevitable Eminem Comparison
Avalon is a white guy who raps laid back lyrics over a simple bass line. It's stripped down and organic, which isn't enough to make a hit. But he's got charisma and personality. Those lyrics are funny and self-deprecating - historically a sure fire way to get attention in the clogged Top 40 charts. (Remember Eminem or Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back?) Like any good rapper worth his Benjamins, Avalon can also throw in a lyric with the correct pronunciation of Hermes.
Jane Fonda is apparently Avalon's single being pimped right now but I really like So Rich So Pretty, which anyone can listen to right there on his MySpace page. These are summer songs, or at least the kind of songs to sing along to while wearing your bikini and sucking down beers through a bong at spring break 2007. Kudos to Avalon for making it to the top of the pile via MySpace.
