5 Songs Inspired by Dodgy Managers

This morning I was doing a marathon run through the discography of “They Might Be Giants”, and I was in stitches most of the time. I hadn’t listened to most of their stuff in a long while, and when I came across “Hey Mr. DJ” on the Miscellaneous T compilation it occurred to me that it would be fun to make a list of songs inspired by dodgy managers.

You know, a compendium of songs with lyrics alluding to individuals who grew wealthy by misrepresenting artists. Or (as good ol’ Roger Daltrey put it once) “people who screw bands down the fuckin’ alley”. Ah, man, gotta love The Who

So, there we go. But do keep in mind this is by no means a “best of” list. It’s just the first five songs that came to mind when I thought up the concept. I’m aware that more (and better) songs on the subjects exist, so please leave a comment with your personal picks. Continue reading

Entrevista al músico puertorriqueño Sie7e

Sie7e, el músico distinguido con un Grammy Latino al “Mejor Nuevo Artista” en 2011 se presenta por primera vez en Uruguay. El escenario escogido es el de Montevideo Music Box. Conversamos con el artista puertorriqueño sobre este evento, como así también sobre su percepción y entendimiento del arte en general.

sie7e

Si hay algo que se aprecia en tus canciones, es el deseo permanente de articular mensajes positivos. Mientras las repasaba, pensaba todo el tiempo en una frase de John Lennon que dice “vivimos en un mundo donde nos escondemos para hacer el amor, mientras la violencia se practica a plena luz del día”. Pienso que resume tu filosofía particularmente bien. ¿Es correcta esa impresión? ¿Hay algo que agregarías o modificarías?S

Definitivamente va acorde a lo que hago.  Me gusta hacer protesta pero con propuesta para que tenga un uso real.  Siento que las canciones y la carrera en general debe ser más que solo entretenimiento. Continue reading

How To Sell Your Music On iTunes

How Do You Sell Your Own Music On iTunes?

How Do You Sell Your Own Music On iTunes?

To think that once upon a time the dream of every musician was to have his own CD on the racks of record stores all over the country… now, his aim is to have it featured on iTunes. Yet, how many stop to think of what would it take to make it happen before doing anything? How many understand how it really works? I hope the text below answers that, and gives anybody something of a direction when thinking about selling his own music through iTunes.

The first thing to realize is that you are not going to work directly with Apple – the requirements for doing that rule most people out (IE, you must have 20 albums in your catalog – that is more than bands like The Who put out in their actual time together). No, what you are going to do is to work with Apple through an aggregator such as TuneCore or CDBaby. These are companies that work with Apple in order to ensure that the content which is featured on iTunes meet its actual quality standards, and they also take care of marketing/promotional duties.

In the case of the two that have just been mentioned (TuneCore and CDBaby – they are easily the two most popular aggregators around), you retain the rights to your music, and you also retain more than 90 % of the royalties for every sale (TuneCore actually lets you retain 100 % of every transaction). Aggregators also let you sell your music on other stores and services such as Amazon MP3, Spotify, MySpace Music, Zune, Rhapsody, Nokia, Amazon On Demand and (in the vast majority of cases) you are also allowed to market your music physically, and have it sold on record stores. Continue reading

Feature: Musicians Around The World, Part 1: Florencia Cano

The Musicians Around The World feature is devoted to chronicling the lives of both Uruguayan who are traveling abroad, and foreign performers who come to Uruguay in order to promote and develop their art.

In the first part of this feature, I had the chance to speak with young Uruguayan singer/composer Florencia Cano. She is going to travel through the US shortly with some friends, and she will take advantage of the time she spends there to try and promote her music in what is undoubtedly the biggest market in the world.

Florencia Cano

Florencia Cano


Q: First of all thank you so much for your time. I’d like to ask you to introduce yourself to all the readers of MusicKO.

A: Thank you for the chance to do this. My name is Florencia Cano, and I was born in Montevideo (Uruguay). I love singing, and I come from a musicians’ family. My father is a jazz musician, and my mother was part of many different rock bands in the ‘60s. I was always attracted to music, but it was only when I became 20 that I realized how much I liked it, how much I enjoyed singing.

At first I sang pop songs, and the band I was in sort of leaned towards country… it was something that sort of happened whenever we were rehearsing and playing. And that wasn’t really something I enjoyed. Then, I began studying operatic singing. That’s what I really like. It’s what I enjoy signing best. I love fusing it with pop. And since I’m a soprano, I like to take my voice as high as possible, make it explode in high notes and then contrast it with lower passages. I like to take my potential further all the time. I am devoting my life to singing.

Q: I understand that you are developing a style of your very own, that your music is not something that could be labeled in a univocal way. Rather, it could be labeled in multiple ways at once. Can you tell everybody about what you are doing? If possible, could you define it?

A: The thing is, I love music on the whole. I listen to lots of different genres, I appreciate mostly every style that you could listen to. I love tango, and I love rock. I love opera. I’m also fond of Jazz. And I believe I began doing things in a certain way, and that way changed as time went by, simply because I’m in a search process. I like to combine lots of things.

Q: But if you had to pinpoint just a couple of genres, what would they be?

A: Well, nowadays I have a couple of compositions that are a bit reminiscent of Ani DiFranco and Jewel… songs I perform only with my acoustic guitar. These are songs I really enjoy playing, but mostly from a personal point of view. They bring me a lot of calm. They are songs that I like to keep to myself. What I want to share with others are the more operatic numbers, the ones where I combine rock with operatic singing. These are the songs I decorate the most – I love decorating things, making them sparkle… There’s nothing I love best than giving a single song lots and lots of different ambiences.

People have told me that the songs I write are a bit like movies. I begin dealing with something specific, but I end up creating a whole world. My characters are the kind everybody ends up relating to.

Q: So, as a composer you have that gift which someone like Joni Mitchell had of narrating what is personal in a universally-relatable way. Is that the right way to put it?

A: Yes, I like that concept, I like to think we are one and all the same. We all have the very same feelings at some point or other in our lives. That is why there are songs that everybody loves, no matter where they are or which language they speak. Continue reading