Digital vs vinyl

I’m mega bored when digital and vinyl releases are the same.

What's the point to make it the same?

A digital release is not one solid block like vinyl. A digital release will be played most probably on shuffle unless it’s a conceptual album that works in a certain way. The intro song will be skipped or will take space in top 5 popular tracks on your Spotify account just because it’s the first track. The hidden tracks don't have the same impact. The “in-between talking” tracks are annoying.

You can have all that with vinyl. But make it different. Change the tracklist, add or remove a couple of songs for the vinyl release, at least. Make it special and have an mp3 link to the digital one. Otherwise, a cool creative opportunity is being missed out.

I like how Jack White tries to make it different. Even spends 10 min explaining what’s special with the Lazaretto vinyl. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-8B-_Jq2ro

Or I’m not getting it? Tell me please.

#merch #album #promotion

Cassettes

I wrote that 90s are back. I started to dig.

19 January 2020 Forbes writes that audio cassettes are hot shit now.
9 November 2019 The Guardian covered the resurgence of cassette tapes.

Benefits: uniqueness, portability, tactile sensation, good audio quality, can be produced in smaller production runs than vinyl with a good price.

With a funky colourful cassette, nice cover print, transparent box and with a delivery one production unit costs 2 € + approx 2 € audio = 4 €. You can sell them for 25€-30€ as limited editions. Or you can just buy blank tapes, record and customise them at home.

Hipsters being early adopters dig tapes, so it's possible that with 90s aesthetics the tape love will become mainstream.

#merch #90s #branding #promotion

​Merch

Don’t forget to bring portable lights with you, because venues usually don’t any for the merch table.

Make sure the signs are big enough and easy to be read from a distance.

Help drunk people buy your merch. They are blind and slow mofos.

Here’s a first photo I found on the Internet that shows a good merch table.

#merch

I know that it’s not easy to keep up with my posting rate, so I’ve indexed my posts with hashtags.

Click on a hashtag to find all the posts related to the topic

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#album
#branding
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#epk
#EverythingIsARemix
#facebook
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#gig
#instagram
#label
#marketing
#mastering
#merch
#movie
#musicvideo
#notmusic
#onlineservice
#planning
#Playlist
#podcast
#production
#promotion
#Spotify
#stats
#style
#telegram
#thegreats
#thepath
#tiktok
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#YouTube

​Merch Idea

I like to mix, adapt and steal.

There is a stamp tradition in Japan. Not like postage stamps, no, rubber stamps. You can get stamps almost at every place, from post offices to temples. The more stamps you collected, the more places you visited. People go bananas with stamps there.

So here's the mix: we can use it for our merch table. You go on a tour, make a stamp just for that tour: band’s name/logo, year, the name of the tour. To put a stamp on your postcard is for free, but a postcard (a photo of your band) is like 5 € or more. So it’s a good piece of memorabilia. You can sell small notebooks and people can collect stamps from your future tours and gigs.

#merch