Re: What does it mean to you, to "release a record"?

[Matt Davignon <mattdavignon@gmail.com>]

I'm sure a lot of people in online music communities use CD baby.

My big beef with sites like cd baby is that they make it *too* easy to
release cd's. There's nothing to stop people who take an amateurish
approach to releasing music from flooding the market with
not-very-good cd's that are released on a whim. As a result, more
serious artists who put an intense amount of care into their releases
get buried under a mountain of junk if they use cd baby.

If I was a cd reviewer or a radio station, I probably would ignore
most cd baby releases, not because good musicians aren't involved with
CD baby, but because the choice of finding the good musicians is much
smaller.

I think there's a mindset among amateur musicians that it's important
to release a lot of cd's in order to "spread one's name about". I've
met others who put out cd's as a documenting function, in the mindset
that a particular project or session isn't 'official' until it's
released to the world at large.

 However, in order to get the good kind of notoriety, I think it's
smarter to release a smaller number of albums, and make sure each one
is of higher quality.

I've been an advocate of artists creating their cd releases as
professional albums. That means editing the music down to the absolute
best 40 to 50 minutes (not 70 or 80 minutes), paying close attention
to how songs flow into each other, getting it professionally mastered,
having the artwork/package designed by someone who's good at that
stuff, and lastly, and lastly, professionally duplicated (not cd-rs)
including a UPC code. A lot of this stuff costs money, but it requires
musicians to make their records something really special.

Matt Davignon
www.ribosomemusic.com

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 5:21 PM, L.Angulo quoted Matt in a funny voice:

>>Also, if I was a reviewer, I'd probably be less likely
>> to listen to
>> anything that comes from CD Baby or any of those other
>> sites that
>> cater to people who are less serious about their cd
>> releases.

Then he went:

> Ups, i think most of us here are with CD baby;-)
> I think CD baby has been a blessing for independent artists and being 
>discovered but yes i see your point, i see the danger of such types of 
>distributors who have wide open arms without many requirements.Ive sold 
>many CDs from my previous cuban son band through them but almost none of 
>my original spanish or looping material.All of them are physical CDs and 
>have been done independently,recorded,produced,packaged etc.but is also 
>obvious that there is music out there that is more mass appealing than 
>other.Lately ive been thinking of just pulling the stuff out that has not 
>sold and keep releasing my own stuff and give it away in concerts,instead 
>of marketing it which i am also not very good at...i know that with the 
>limitations of doing everything yourself most likely it will never be as 
>appealing for reviewers as something backed by an established label.But 
>then you come across somebody like Jose Gonzalez or Elbow and you canīt 
>help but having the feeling
>  that it can be possible...
> Luis