Now that the album has been out almost two weeks, I can safely say that the Jango-crowdsourced selection was indeed the best choice for opening the album. It seems to be the most consistently liked track, but then again, maybe that’s just because being track 1 provides a credibility boost!

It’s also a great idea to send you fans a free song and get them to pick from a list of four. Whichever song you pick will be the same song but you will be able to work out which song title matches most with your fans.

Hope that make sense,

AirHammer

My Taxi subscription expires in a week, and while I haven’t had any luck in 12 years, I’d be willing to try again if I can get a referral or two. The critiques are usually helpful, often painfully helpful if you know what I mean! I’d say look at the listings and see if there are some good matches. The Road Rally alone is worth the price of admission, plus you can take a guest. But if you can’t make the rally and none of the listings excite you, you might want to hold off. If you do decide to sign up, I’d appreciate it if you could mention my name. You’ll get 5 free submissions and they’ll knock $100 off my renewal.

I wrote about Taxi in more detail here:

http://passivepromotion.com/12-years-with-taxi

Thanks for replying! If you check out Soundout, let me what you think.

In the meantime, what’s your current take on Taxi? I’m considering joining, but it seems like the only Taxi customers with any success are the ones used in Taxi’s testimonials. No one else seem to think much of the service, which makes me a little suspicious.

Jeff

As always, you share brilliant usage of marketing science, music production, and creative passion. As a marketing guy by day, and songwriter…some day soon, again…I’m a huge fan. Great technique, great actionable results — you’re already 10x smarter than the average label exec.

Jeff, I’ve never heard of Soundout, but I was a Broadjam member for a few years, only because it allowed me to submit songs to Taxi online (before Taxi.com added the feature). I visited recently and saw some nice film/TV opportunities, but I think Sonicbids is superior in that regard. I have mixed feelings on Sonicbids overall, but it’s getting better.

I read about your injury and scanned your blog. Way to turn lemons into lemonade! It makes for an interesting story, and I anticipate a happy ending when you fully recover. “More Good Than Harm” summarizes your experience in a universal way, which of course makes a lot of sense unless your demographic is brain injury sufferers.

Laurent, for my previous album I set up my own focus group of 12 friends/fans. There were 15 songs, but I only presented the 7 to them that I was willing to drop. I cut three to include 12 songs on the album, sequenced in a way that made sense to me musically. Track 1 was my favorite, but definitely not a grower. I didn’t want to make that mistake again this time. If there’s a “Creep” in my new album’s tracklist, I want people to hear it! It just so happens that this track really does make a great opener, so I don’t feel I’m sacrificing anything musicially.

First of all I’d like to say it’s a brilliant use of Jango. A really clever one, I guess almost no one expected that. Everybody there on Jango is focused on fan growth and fame (just read the discussions going around the popScore). You really used it as a powerfull marketing tool, such as the ones which are dedicated to that kind of result, but with a far better result. Congrats.

I’d like now to focus on the way you used it, and the goals you explain. It reminds me a guy who complained in one of your other articles : Is it art or commerce ? You get rid of the bridge, you get rid of the less liked songs. You’re seeking grabbers, not growers. I’m shure some are going to clearly complain about it. Devo asked for the colour of their hats, you asked for the grabbers and the tracklist. But I think you’re right trying to find out your own “creep”.

This is a choice and I can understand it. I even think it’s probably the smartest choice any “newcomer” indie can do. You talked about radiohead’s “creep”. Of course radiohead is nothing without creep. And I think all this purpose is about finding our “Creep”. Even Radiohead can’t do it again… Anyway, it was just to say the point is not to discuss about your own goal. And I know you’re not into finding easy grabbers only …

So this article is about Jango, of course, but also a way of defining your own goals and try to succeed in them… A very good insight. I don’t have much more to say…

Just one note about this :
“The vast majority of plays on my Bandcamp page are the first track of my latest album”. It’s also the same for my last album. People mainly listen to the first track, then fade away with the other ones. Change the tracklist, I guess the most listened track will be the first one. Did you use any stat or something to think it was the best track ?

See you