The growing number of social-networking sites aimed at bringing aspiring musicians and loyal music fans together,  gives way to greater control of an artist’s career, while entertaining music lovers everywhere.

Encouraging the emerging artist to connect with fans, and promoting music is the purpose of sites such as Ourstage.com . Among its many partners,  Ourstage has joined with MTV for the Emerging Artist Program.  Sonicbids.com brings the artist and promoter together, and is a place where any band from any genre anywhere in the world, can come to find and connect with any type of music promoter, licensor or broadcaster — easily, effectively, and quickly.

As technology advances at such a rapid pace, so goes the advancement of innovative ways to meet the challenges of music promotion and the business of making music.  Unlike the new frontiers of days ago big band Radio, and major labels, this new wave of Music Business done better sets out community guidelines that its independent members must agree to:

“We like to think we’re in this together, meaning we provide the platform to showcase your talent, but we need artists’ help too.  Keep your profile updated, keep uploading into our channels, make friends, recruit fans—help us help you.”
Ourstage Community Values

When the “help them to help you” gets overwhelming, there are professionals like Pro Soul Alliance to assist artists while allowing them to keep in control of their career.

According to Hypebot.com there are 10 Commandments of Music 2.0:

The first Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Worship False Prophets – Neither a record deal or auto-tune are your saviors.”

Coming in at a very, very close second “Thou Shalt Worship Only One God – He (or she) is called The Fan.”

Following the first two (which, I might add, should be your daily mantra) are Commandments 5 and 6 respectively – “Thou Shalt Blog – Your flock wants to know what you’re doing, and Thou Shalt Create Profiles – Wherever your flock may go, you must be there.”

Closing out the “Holy Grail” with Commandment 9 “Thou Shalt Share Thy Bounty. Share gigs. Share ideas. Share with your fans.”

And let us not forget the final Commandment 10, “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You – You meet the same people on the way down that you did on the way up.”

Hypebot.com asks for an eleventh Commandment? “Thou shalt Twitter – tweet like you’ve never tweeted before.” Twitter is the ultimate tool in the world today which allows you to reach out and given 140 characters per tweet, you speak to your fans as though they were in the studio with you. Bonding and building your personal relationships creates a loyal fan base. Thus honoring Commandments 1 through 9 – number 10, that’s between you and your conscience.

Because it is daunting to accomplish all these tasks while trying to be creative, Pro Soul works with artists of all genres, helping them develop their music careers in a changing industry to meet the needs of the modern music lover without taking any rights or profits.

Indie labels are often expected to specialize in one genre of music. We hear, “Cool, a record label? What kind of music do you do?”

That’s an easy one.

We do good music. We do music that is creative, interesting – and that speaks to people, regardless of how it’s made. We encourage pushing musical boundaries. We don’t shy away from music that doesn’t fit into one particular genre. That’s why we represent artists from across the musical spectrum, from hip hop and house to rock and spiritual-pop.

Remember: major labels spoon-feed consumers the most profitable “trends”. They tell us what to enjoy because this moves money from fans and deposits it securely into the increasingly-shallow pockets of the corporation. (Notice how the artist is bypassed in this transaction.)  Pro Soul doesn’t play by those rules.

With music so easily accessible to fans today, we believe there’s room in the industry for artists of every genre – even if the clerks at the few remaining CD stores can’t figure out where to file your album. Just because the juggernaut that is the major labels dictates something, doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing. There’s a lot of great music out there that never makes it to people who would appreciate and enjoy it, simply because it’s not easy for artists to do it all themselves.  

Pro Soul has a finger on the pulse of what fans want from artists, so we know how to help artists connect meaningfully with their audience.

Trends may come and go, but good music is enduring. And since we plan to be around for a while, we’ll take the latter.