We receive a lot of label promos like this via metadata submissions through Cargo. Have also spoken to at least one label who is interested in writing editorial content for the service. Thought this could be part of our overall curation strategy, so wanted to open it up for some discussions.
To start off, maybe “promos” sounds a bit too commercial? Would “release” be a better title?
Agree that it definitely needs to be moderated. And thanks @SimmoMaz for the reminder about EPKs, as this could almost be an alt service for the artists.
Hoping that we can find a way to present this that it works on different levels…
promos
editorial
stories
EPKs
press releases
What’s a “one size fits all” name for this? I think I’d lean towards stories since its fairly neutral.
I’m not clear on what function these will serve and/or where/how we’ll see/interact with them.
Are they cut/paste artist/label promos or editorialised content? Editorialised for what purpose? Are they critical, promotional, personal?
Stories, in the current context of Instagram/Facebook/etc ‘feels’, rightly or wrongly, like personal UGC. Resonate presenting a ‘story’ that is an artist/label’s ‘story’ doesn’t feel right. If it’s artist/label ‘brand’ content then it should come from brand channels.
Thanks for the very insightful, critical feedback. Very appreciated, as you’re revealing the limitations of my own take on this.
My primary motivation is to have a place to tell stories about the albums being released. For instance, my long-time friend/collaborator Monc released a new album a few weeks ago and as I know him, I was aware that a lot of the songs were influenced by his battle with cancer. Knowing that affects the listening of the album, hence, a story that could change someone else’s perspective as they listen.
That’s a more personal example, whereas the sample I shared (which was copy/paste promo material sent with the full metadata) is quite different. More like a press release.
And so maybe thats what has been revealed through your response… that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, because these two examples (a personal anecdote and a label press release) are really utterly different things and need different containers.
My intuition is that sustainable story-telling will be an important part of the Resonate community’s success. In my experience stories and the reputation and ‘cultural-ecology’ of the story-teller or context-setter are integral to the musical encounter the artist provides with their work. I’m working on an outline for a kind of standard production routine to offer sustainable, periodic narratives and playlinks from a breath of editorial sources and styles. It’s in my backlog. Hoping to share at least outlines this week…
I’m excited by this Rich. I think it could extend beyond story telling about music and into story telling about cooperative cultures that have a connection with music… What do others on here feel about including more podcast tracks, with spoken word, prose or poetry. It would need trusted curation…?