SOUVIK CHAKRABORTY
AN INSIGHT INTO THE INDIE MUSIC DISTRIBUTION AND PROMOTION DURING THE LOCKDOWN : A VIRTUAL GROUND REPORT .
Regardless of their vocation , 2020 is certainly a notable year for all creators and artists worldwide . It is true that in an age of social distancing and self quarantines , a live performer cannot certainly hope to bake his bread ; let alone pick the cherries of a good harvest . Musicians , artists , and event technicians are some of the worst hits in the pandemic .
Malini Hariharan- Horus Music
Interestingly enough , the indie music circuit is pretty much always braced for the worst-case scenario , and the lockdown just materialized more possibilities for them . The lockdown actually brought a boom in multiple releases across various genres and new brands .
For many , the fountain of creativity flourished through multiple avenues of distribution and promotions to create various monetization opportunities . The Score Magazine spoke to three biggies of indie music distro and promos , viz . CD Baby , Songdew , and Believe India to understand how they helped the artists despite all the challenges and the setbacks .
Malini Hariharan Director of the music distributor company , Horus Music confirms : " we saw a large increase in the number of releases we received during the lockdown . Initially , it was quite a challenge to meet the demand due to working from home and having to adapt to a new way of working , but over the course of the lockdown we have implemented new features that improve the speed of delivery to stores as well as give our clients more options for the way they like their releases to be delivered .
On the flip side , the lockdown restrictions had , in turn , created many interesting opportunities for creating an alive and entertaining music market . Vivek Raina the Managing director of Believe Music recounts : " we have had a good appreciation for digital concerts such as ‘ Together , Louder , Stronger ’ produced by Believe Entertainment , which featured more than 20 artists live from their homes , supporting the lives impacted by the pandemic ." He further adds , " Since we cater to all artists , our focus across regional artists have been more , managing their requests and sharing our services , which worked out well for both of us in terms of collaboration and releasing their recordings ." In fact , other brands have adapted soon to suit the market .
Raina ' s BM as a brand looks to root for regional music and even has a Do-It-Yourself ( DIY ) platform like Tunecore where an artist can simply upload her recordings and distribute it across digital music stores and get 100 % of their royalty back . His approach had been pretty foolproof and intimate : " we have been in touch with the artists during this entire time of lockdown and helped them release their recordings or manage their YouTube Channels ." He further shares his game-plan for maintaining a record consistency . " This year has been quite challenging for a lot of services , but for us distributing tracks on time was not a challenge as we have a scalable technology which allows us to distribute many tracks on daily basis . If the song assets are ingested within a certain timeframe , that helps us distributing tracks within the timeline ."
A dash of dedication is all that an indie artist craves for some such enablers and BM does not dishearten : " we continue with our mission which is to develop labels and artists in the most suitable way , at each stage of their career and development , in all local markets around the world , with respect , expertise , fairness , and transparency "
Another DIY distribution platform , CD Baby , had confirmed that they had to actually grow their team size in order to tackle the influx of a high dose of quality releases in the past few months . " This pandemic has not stopped us from pursuing our mission
The Score Magazine
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