2009, the year that was…
2009 was (still is, for a little while longer!) a year of major growth and success for Musicadium and we are glad all of you who joined in 2009 have jumped on board, and those of you who have stayed with us, we are pleased to have you with us on this brilliant digital voyage.
We hope that your 2009 has been productive, creative, filled with music (seeing and playing gigs, creating, recording, releasing and more!)
So…without further ado, let’s recap.
Showcases
This year, we continued the tradition of fantastic showcases at BarSoma and included one at Brisbane’s newest live music venue, X & Y Bar.
February saw Melbourne-dwellers Foxx on Fire headline, along with The CityScape Riot and Spider8 at BarSoma - see photos here.
June saw Brisbane Rockers The Gallant headline, as well as Streamer Bendy’s very first gig EVER, with Musicadium team member Steve Laubscher’s rockin’ band Moonjog - See Photos here!
July’s showcase at X & Y Bar was a change of scenery, but still every bit as Rock and Roll, with Sarah Haigh, Skara Brae and The CityShakeUp, as well as Musicadium Team Member Roxy Burt aka Jane Doe DJ hitting the decks straight after - see photos here.
October saw the very first weekend Musicadium Showcase - Melbourne Trip-hoppers Sietta headlined, Brisbane’s industrial/electro, female-fronted Felinedown supported and Soul-Tripper Andrew Chen crooned to the audience. Jane Doe DJ, Will Timmins and DuaneMC partied the night away with everyone till the wee hours (4am!) - see the photos here.
Thank you to both venues, as well as all the performers who played at the showcases and all of our Musicadium team members who volunteered their time to make these showcases happen. We are looking forward to more amazing live music in 2010.
Automated Uploads
In late 2009, we implemented an upload process into our album release system for artists to directly put their music into the Musicadium archives for storage, encoding and packaging to send to outlets.
Videos to iTunes
This now meant that, due to using iTunes’ more technical, server-side process - we could send music videos! One of the many, many inquiries Musicadium gets every week is if we distribute video to iTunes.
This means that, at this time, Musicadium is the only distributor in Australia with the technical ability to provide video to iTunes.
One of our early video clients, Sydney band, Cameras was featured on the front page of iTunes as a free download (Single of the Week), where people also had access to purchase the beautiful video for the haunting, melancholy song.
ARIAs
The ability to send video to iTunes also meant that we were asked to partner with ARIA, iTunes and Youth Beyond Blue for a special project - sending the video and audio content of the artist performances from the event to iTunes, collecting the royalties and sending 100% of the proceeds to Australian charity supporting the needs of young people with depression.
Musicadium distributed videos and audio tracks by The Hilltop Hoods, Robbie Williams, Keith Urban, Kate Miller-Heidke, Lisa Mitchell, Sarah Blasko, Ladyhawke, The Temper Trap and Jessica Mauboy.
A final amount to be donated to Youth Beyond Blue is yet to be reached, but it will be made known when it is available.
Nokia/MySpace
2009 was the year of new outlets for Musicadium - Nokia Music and (available soon) MySpace Music.
Nokia’s popular Nokia Store and Nokia Comes with Music outlet was added at the same time as the upload system was implemented. Nokia featured electro-wizards Foxx on Fire’s new single White Sands as a free promotional download on their front page in November.
MySpace Music was launched in late 2009 in Sydney and Promotions and Development Manager Tim Price attended, partying the night away with the Philadelphia Grand Jury lads.
Dave Carter Research/Big Sound Samplers
Starting in early 2009, Griffith University’s Dr David Carter approached Musicadium with an idea of analysing some of Musicadium’s data about artists we distribute. Taking a look at anonymous data, he constructed a research paper that looked at the causal elements of driving digital music sales.
The Paper was presented at Brisbane’s annual QMusic Big Sound conference in September, alongside showcases, keynote speakers and 4 days of industry discussions.
The results were tweeted about the world over, as well as featured on music feature sites such as HypeBot, Billboard and The Music Void. Ariel Hyatt of Cyber PR loved the results and review the research paper on her website.
See Photos here and take a look at the results.
Also, while on the topic of Big Sound, Musicadium distributed free samplers of the Musicians featured in the showcases at the Conference to AmazonMP3 and eMusic for the month’s leadup for the attendees flying in from the world over to sample prior to arrival. Artists such as The Middle East, Washington, The Basics, Old Man River and The Boat People were featured.
iTunes/Nokia Singles of the week, Samplers
Over the course of the year, we have been very lucky to grab some great coverage for some fantastic artists in our catalogue on both the iTunes and Nokia Music Stores, as well as participate in samplers and other promotional activities.
Foxx on Fire - Single of the Week - Mission Abort (iTunes)
Cameras - Single of the Week (iTunes)
Buckley Ward - Single of the Week (iTunes)
Tokenview - Single of the Week (iTunes)
Little Scout - New and Noteworthy (iTunes)
Sally Seltmann - New and Noteworthy (iTunes)
Foxx on Fire - Single of the Week - White Sands (Nokia)
Big Sound Sampler - The Middle East, Washington, The Basics, Old Man River etc
ARIA Artist Performances - The Hilltop Hoods, Robbie Williams, Keith Urban, Kate Miller-Heidke, Lisa Mitchell, Sarah Blasko, Ladyhawke, The Temper Trap and Jessica Mauboy etc
Myer Christmas Gift Card Sampler - Rick Price, Tina Arena, Diesel, Human Nature etc
QSong Awards 2009
Musicadium once again supported the Queensland, Australia music scene by sponsoring Qmusic QSong Awards in two categories - the New Music/Experimental category and the Pop Music Category.
Kley and Michaela awarded the New Music/Experimental award to The Rational Academy and Tim and Sarah awarded The John Steel Singers with their award for the Pop Music Category.
See the photos here.
Digital Think Tank
In late 2009, Tim travelled to Melbourne to participate in the Music Council of Australia’s Digital Think Tank #3, for distributors, labels and ISPs.
Tim participated in the discussion that should help shape the future of Australia’s digital policy for the Arts and copyright.
Musicadium on Hypebot
Musicadium follows Hypebot as an indicator of the digital music industry - reporting on the most up to date information from around the world.
So, it was an absolutely ecstatic moment when Hypebot listed Musicadium as one of their Twitter “Five to Follow” list - http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/10/five-more-worth-following.html.
Overall
2009 has been an amazing year for Musicadium and we can’t wait to let you know what we have in store for you, the artist, in 2010. We thank you all for participating in the digital revolution and supporting Musicadium. We hope to be helping you look over the horizon towards new music industry models and being a professional in that industry. We look forward to continuing to provide you with an artist-friendly way to distribute and more.
With Digital Christmas Cheer,
The Musicadium Team