iTunes gives you a thirty second sample of a song. But who can tell from thirty seconds if it’s a song they want to buy? iTunes is not the place to find new music, and it definitely does not help people who are just starting out.

Bandcamp is the place for that. Their philosophy is: you can’t sell your music if nobody has heard it. The header from their website gives a great description: “Viral distribution. We give your fans drop dead easy tools to share your music with their friends, and most importantly we do it in a way that drives traffic back to you.”

On Bandcamp, everything is free. You enter your username, email, and bandname. Then you upload songs. Every song can be listened to in full, in high quality, for free. Then, you can sell your songs in any format (Bandcamp does it for you) at whatever price you want. Bandcamp makes spreading and selling your songs very simple.

This is definitely a great resource for independent musicians trying to get into the music industry. Every other creative medium has a way of getting itself out: vloggers have YouTube; bloggers have Tumblr, Blogspot, etc.; photographers have Flickr; artists have Deviantart… Musicians didn’t have anything until Bandcamp.

Wes Anderson / Style

Wes Anderson is the director of three of my favorite movies – Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited. I can always tell when I’m watching a Wes Anderson film because has his own very distinctive style.

1. Most of the shots are extremely wide-angle, showing the barrel distortion from the lens.

2. Most of the shots have a peculiar symmetry.

3. The camera’s movements (when it even moves at all) are very smooth.

4. Every movie has its own color scheme. This color scheme repeats in every scene, all throughout the movie.

It is always a good idea to have a distinctive style (or two, if you’re like Nate Williams). Being consistent with yourself and following the rules of your own design style can help you become more recognized – this helps when looking for jobs or when looking to become well known. All of the great artists (both centuries ago and now) have their own distinct styles. And since film is an art form, each director should have his own distinct style too.

What I love about Wes Anderson’s films is that his style is absurdly recognizable. His style is tremendously different from typical Hollywood films and even from other independent films. His style is by far the most distinctive in the industry right now.

LaBlogotheque

It is difficult to connect to your audience so much that they really feel like they are there, in the room. But LaBlogotheque has this mastered.

LaBlogotheque:

luh-BLOG-oh-THEEK

LaBlogotheque is a French group who records sessions with top indie musicians. But they don’t record the musicians performing live shows, they record them performing on the street – or on the subway, or in abandoned buildings, or in buildings with interesting architecture, or in front of very small groups of people…

LaBlogotheque captures musicians in a raw atmosphere, with a raw look. The on-the-street format forces the musicians to break the music down to just its basics – its roots – and perform it simply and from the heart.

LaBlogotheque’s shows capture this by employing recording and editing methods that match the raw feeling. The footage is edited into simple, deep colors – usually a red, blue-green, or yellow, with a film-like level of high contrast. This keeps the film looking messy and unready. This keeps the shows feeling close-to-home.

What LaBlogotheque is best at is capturing a soulful atmosphere and portraying it to their audience. By absorbing the colors, the sounds, and the events of the videos, the audience is able to feel at home with the musicians. The video’s viewer feels like the musicians are letting them hear a secret. LaBlogotheque does a great job of presenting it.

LaBlogotheque’s shows are available on YouTube or on their website.

Andrew Bird / Matching vs. Coordinating

Andrew Bird’s music video for his song Lull is fully animated. But it isn’t animated in a cartoon-like style. It looks like moving bits of paper. Everything is hand-drawn in actuality, but the pieces were moved around digitally – not by stop-motion.

I love this disconnection of styles. Usually, something that exists outside of a computer – something tangible, like a piece of paper – will be animated in a primarily non-digital manner (stop-motion, clay-mation, etc.). And conversely, digital pieces will be animated digitally. But in this video, physical pieces are digitally animated – this is atypical.

This is something like the idea of mix-and-match. Where originally, one thing matches with another thing, a new thing can be matched with the first in a way that coordinates. The difference between matching and coordinating is an important concept to understand in digital media. Mixing and matching allows for so many more options of styles, and for so many more outcomes.

Julia Nunes / Ben Folds

People tend to separate the internet from the outside world. Cyberspace is seen as a bit of life that is not an actual part of life. But sometimes the internet affects the real world in huge ways.

YouTube musician Julia Nunes was a sensation in herself, but when she posted a cover to the Ben Folds song Gone, a big thing happened. The song was a big hit, and Ben Folds was so impressed by it – the cover and her music – that he invited her to go on tour with him. Ben Folds is Julia Nunes’ favorite musician.

There was no contest or competition. YouTube was the only thing in play. Julia Nunes received this awesome opportunity because YouTube made the connection possible.

Julia Nunes' videosong cover of Gone by Ben Folds.

 Julia Nunes performing Gone with Ben Folds

Kids - MGMT

In January of 2008, a music video for the song Kids by MGMT was posted to YouTube by user jsalmon. It involved a boy and a girl, faces painted, dancing to the song, and clips from old shows of people dancing.

 

A few months later, in April, jsalmon was contacted by Ray Tintori, who has directed several official videos for MGMT. Tintori invited him and his two actors to be in the official video for MGMT's song Electric Feel.



Jsalmon's video has received more views so far than MGMT's own official video for Kids (which was released in 2009), and it is the first to show up in searches for the song. It's crazy how huge this video has become, and even more crazy what came out of it. The Internet is the best place to become well known for doing something awesome, because it is the fastest. We truly have the setup for Andy Warhol's "fifteen minutes of fame."

Exodus Damage - John Vanderslice

John Vanderslice's song Exodus Damage has a very good video. It was filmed with old film video cameras, and it uses time-lapses and also occasional still film shots. It tells a mysterious story that follows a young man (it looks as though it was in the 1990's), roaming around with his iconic Leica, taking photos of large buildings.



The old style of filming goes nicely with the sound of the song. Both the video and the song are very crisp - they have the same feel. And the look of the video clips (and the occasional still photos) - lots of dark black colors against moody colors - emphasizes the darkness of the lyrics. The song is full of creepy, dark things, but masked with a bright melody. The look of the video really enhances that.

The Tracey Fragments

Sometimes life is a little bit broken.

In the movie The Tracey Fragments, which is based on a book, Ellen Page plays a depressed, mixed up teenager. In the film, she is looking for her younger brother, whom she has hypnotized into believing he is a dog. This movie is bizarre and depressing, but its editing is incredibly noteworthy.

Most movies show you one thing at a time, but The Tracey Fragments is not like most movies. The stage is fragmented, showing bits and pieces of clips at a time.

The entire movie looks like this, and I think that the fragmented clips help add to the movie's main theme. Tracey is a fragmented girl, a little bit crazy, and the editing helps show that. Also, having a film be split into pieces lets more things be shown at once, and it gives the final piece more replay-ability. You can't watch the whole screen at once. You have to move your eyes around, deciding which spot is best. It's almost like a puzzle.

Something like this would have never been able to be done with film. Having the film be digital is the only way that a stage can be split into so many fragments at the same time. But even still, this must have been a terribly difficult movie to edit.

I Fight Dragons

Remember all those old video games you used to play on your NES and your Gameboy? Do you remember any of the controllers? You might recognize a few:

This video really says it all.

Chicago-based NES-Rock band (the first and so-far only of its kind) I Fight Dragons plays video game controllers as instruments. The controllers are hooked up to computers, and the buttons correspond to certain sounds, which are controlled by the computers. Other items include the standalone Original Gameboy, which is equipped with a Little Sound DJ Cartrige, which lets you program entire songs and play them back.

This is yet another example of technology not being used how it was intended, but in a completely new and interesting way. I Fight Dragons is truly innovative, and truly "nerdy" to be able to come up with this idea. They are an incredibly fun band, frequently drawing references to their favorite old videogames and dreaming about a sci-fi future.

IFD takes advantage of the Free Economy idea, giving out all of their songs to members of their mailing list. This helps them raise a fan-base. Apparently this was a good idea, because Imogen Heap found out about them and collaborated on a song with them.

Feeling nostalgic about your old games? Don't worry. IFD has a fun little game at the top of their myspace page where you, too, can fight dragons. It's simple, just like the old games.

St. Vincent

St. Vincent is Annie Clark, a petite, delicate looking woman. She has a sweet, light voice when she sings, and she looks like she could be talented the cousin of Regina Spektor. She incorporates strings, woodwinds, brass, pianos, and keyboards in her music in a sophisticated way.

But she isn't always this light and happy. Her music is often very dark and strange. Her guitar is harsh and "gnarly," as she puts it. Her music can be very intense and brooding, and in just a few seconds, be very calm and moderate. She uses both her guitar and her voice to create this effect, playing or singing sweet melodies, then blasting broken guitar sounds and synthesizing her voice over frazzled lyrics.

She is a paradox.

Like Nate Williams, she has two distinct styles that are very contradicting. But unlike Nate Williams, she merges them into one, making her music laughably dark, in an almost crazy way. It's as if she is happy about being upset, hurt, angry. Her music sounds is masochistic - light about being dark - in the most polite way. There's just something about the combination of her two styles that makes it humorous, but humorous in a sad way.

This combination of styles is a perfectly valid alternative to Nate Williams' separation of styles. It makes the end product thicker, with more layers, more mysteries. This is a good lesson to be learned - that sometimes the split is good, and sometimes the combination is good. And sometimes all three are good.

IndieFeed

IndieFeed is a simple website. Each day of the week it posts a full length song in one of six genres. Sunday is alt rock, Monday is indie pop, Tuesday is hip hop, and so on. They take Saturdays off.

Its music player is simple. The page flips through each song silently by genre until you scroll over it or click to play. The player flips through the artwork that goes along with the album and also gives a short description of the song. And at the end of each song is a short, but informative review of the band in general. Each song is also available for free download, and most of the songs are archived.


IndieFeed is a spontaneous way to find new music. It is not a good way to find tons of new bands - TasteKid is better for that. But it is a great way to get a steady input of new music. It's gives a very filtered selection, so it's great if you don't have a lot of time. Also, IndieFeed accepts submissions, so you are very likely to hear something brilliant that isn't anywhere else simply because it isn't well known. IndieFeed is a fun website to visit every day, just to hear what's new.

Pitchfork

Pitchfork is a website that acts as a resource for finding out about new bands and old bands. It's very informative and has great features. Pitchfork has a huge list of musicians, who are mostly indie artists, that it follows. It connects people to news, reviews, tour dates, and releases.

Pitchfork is an awesome way to find new musicians, because it has a tab at the top that is devoted to just that. It gives the top ten new albums and the top ten new tracks, and it updates frequently.

This website also writes great reviews of its artists. They are short and to the point, so the reader can get a very good idea of what the album or track being reviewed will sound like.

Pitchfork's news feature informs people of announced tourdates in a very helpful way. All the artists with upcoming tours are listed on one page, and when clicked, the tourdates pop down conveniently.It also has a simple list of the top tracks and albums from other music sources. Their podcast, Forkcast, gives full length songs several times a day.