Severed Fifth
Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore Jono’s Severed Fifth project and the different lessons learned in trying to bring Creative Commons music to the world.
Of course, we are the very start of the discussion! What do you think? Do you think Creative Commons artists can be successful? How do you think this intersects with the traditional music industry? Do you feel that promotion or production is more important? Share your thoughts in the shot comments below…
32 Comments to “Severed Fifth”
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Just wanted to point out (Libre.fm (news and development information) which is an attempt to help promote creative commons music through a last.fm style approach. It keeps track of your listening history, lets you stream, rate and download music from creative commons artists* and will eventually recommend new CC artists based on your listening history.
Slight update to that, streaming is now fixed so you can listen to Libre artists via http://alpha.libre.fm/listen
Good grief… was the intro a reference to that dreadful Manowar song?
No comment.
If you’re not in to ManOWar… \m/
Just listening to the Severed Fifth album and i think its excellent. I only very recently discovered out about Jamendo and am stunned at how good independent music can be.
Well putting it on Shot of Jaq is one way to get it out to a wider audience. I downloaded the album and I’m listening to it now. It’s not my style of music, but I’m impressed nonetheless. My only gripe is with the drums, it was also the first thing that hit me with the Shot of Jaq theme. The electronic drum sound really grates, I still haven’t got used to it with the Shot of Jaq theme, and it distracts from the tracks on the album.
In terms of creative commons music in general, I think there are many musicians out there who would be willing to produce creative commons music. As you touched on in the shot, social media is the way forward for publicity.
Well I’m still listening to the album, and even though it’s not what I normally listen to I am enjoying it. Great work on the guitar, has to be my favourite aspect.
I strongly dislike metal nevermind death metal so yeah not gonna get into that.
But interestingly I found my way onto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list
which is not creative commons but out of copyright classical music but nonethless if this could be done with new music of a similar quality it would be great.
While I dislike the music – its nice to see people trying what jono is and has been trying.
soundclick – I presume that is in the same type of vain?
i could be wrong…
All this talk of the great good of Open and Community Creativity does have its opponents.
http://www.acmuller.net/wikipedia.html
I think its called plagiarism.
If it is an original creation then it is not plagarised, we are talking about original creations in the comments section. The chap whose webpage you linked to seems to be pissed that he is not among the wikipedia elite and that perhaps there is a rational-thinking majority that places his “work” in the psuedo-science section.
I desperately want to say something positive, but first I need to get this madness out of my head! I need some Miles Davis now to stay sane.
http://twitpic.com/1jyt5v
I might stop gut laughing sometime next year. Maybe.
I pretty much exclusively listen to metal, and usually death metal (everything between brutal and melodic death metal. Bands like Carcass, Necrophagist and the Gothenburg trio are great hits with me). I also use open source, again almost exclusively. I’ll try to give what helpful input I can here.
I didn’t hear about Severed Fifth until Jono’s clueful comments on FLOSS Weekly made me listen to SOJ, and thereafter check the guy out (so, yes, publicity wasn’t too good). The album is fairly good IMO.
The first song – Beating Heart- is IMO pretty boring (sorry, I’m jaded I know). Take The Test is quite good, but everyone bored by the first song will never get there. IMO the album suffers a bit from a somewhat “flat” sound – not a lot of variation between songs, and obviously no virtuoso drummer. Getting more people in on the project might help with both, Seraphidian(?) is very good. Few mainstream projects are one-man efforts.
YouTube playlists – as Jono has used – are a good idea. Downloads (as from the web site) is a good idea but supplementing by streaming is better.
I was originally of the inclination to send some dollars to the project. I never discovered how to do so (even looked for it on the web site). Though it’s perhaps no big goal getting some money in can’t hurt.
All music is free as in beer now, with Spotify, TouTube and torrenting. This doesn’t help free – as in speech – music. Personally, I consistently buy music from people I know and from bands I respect. Other music – well, you just borrow it for a few listens so you don’t feel obliged to pay. To go out on a tangent, I actually think services like the Ubuntu One Music Store – which makes buying easier and more convenient – could help with that.
Jono: good luck on the next album. I’ll certainly check it out.
I think I disagree with the idea that more accessible music would be easier to find an audience for. Yeah you might have a larger slice of the pie of people who will potentially like it, but having a niche product for a niche audience also streamlines the whole promotional process. Instead of trying to be all things to all men you simply have to get on the Death Metal sites and promote to death metal fans. With limited time and resources to promote your music I’d say that would be a blessing in disguise.
PS. I agree with the other commenter, your drum sounds suck. Please ask Shuttleworth for a payrise if you can’t afford some better drum sounds.
If the new material is more accessible, I’m excited to hear it.
The current album may well be used for backing music on a future video I’m involved in, but it’s not something I would choose to listen to, simply because of my tastes being different.
I do find the project interesting though and support the initiative whole-heartedly.
Jono, when you released the first Severed Fifth album, why didn’t you put it on Jamendo? That wouldn’t have done all the work, of course, but it could have helped, don’t you think?
I really love hard rock but I’m not very into that kind of extreme metal of yours… I’m glad that your next album is going to be not so hard, I’m looking forward to hear it!
Thank god Severed Fifth isn’t Britney style!
I’m a fan of most forms of metal so it wasn’t hard for me to like the first album. I was all ready to help promote it too (I’m on the forum) but the promotion side all seemed to die a death a bit. Hopefully there’ll be a little more momentum with the release of the second album.
I know a couple of my contacts on last.fm picked up on Severed Fifth via me, but that’s about as far as it went I think. One guy even gave me feedback – he was impressed but as a thrash metal fan didn’t like the drums, hah!
I can’t really comment on how successful or not these kinds of projects are, but I’m looking forward to the new release…
OK, I’ll stick my neck out.
I totally get Free Software, frequently advocate it and use it for myself and for my job where I can. I can give lots of reasons why it’s a good idea for business, advancing the world, equal opportunities and a bunch of other things.
What’s the point of Free Music? I actually don’t know. Can someone tell me?
Or..
It gives you a way of legally hearing it for free, and if you like it you can donate to the band, go to live gigs, buy merch.. money which the bands otherwise would not get because the media corps that control radio would not allow them airtime.
Damn, we (by which, I mean, I) really need a preview button
Out of interest, regardless of the success of the open-source style process, has the first Severed Fifth album been a success in the metal community? I assume it was your work alone, Jono, so would you consider bringing on others to collaborate with to get some more traction in the metal community? Perhaps guest singers or musicians?
I also had a question about what you actually release with the album: given you’re wanting people to genuinely make up new stuff with your music, do you release all the songs individually but also the components of the music, e.g. instrument tracks, singing tracks, music notation(?), all individually, too?
I’ve often wondered how remixes in dance music work given some remixes seem to completely change how a song sounds and so must be using something other than the mastered original track to start with. Does one DJ ask another for their ’sources’ to a given track, along with permission to make a remix? If anyone can enlighten me I’d be very grateful as it’s bugged me for years (being more of an electronica fan).
Good luck with the next album Jono.
Good luck with the next Severed Fifth album. \m/
How about a follow-up project of some soft MOR pop/rock?
Gerv
Jono, I think the Severed Fifth experiment is not complete. Had you promoted the album more completely within the “music scene”, as you admitted you did not, any metrics for its success would have been skewed by your popularity in non-musical communities.
I believe you should re-release and promote the Severed Fifth album independently from your current community ties and see where it goes. Anything learned would definitely be valuable for your next album.
A few people have already mentioned Jamendo, and I totally agree. It’s hard to overemphasize how important it is to make obtaining your music easy.
I’m a lazy, lazy man who doesn’t like death metal. But if I could just queue it up in the Jamendo app on my Android phone, I’d give it a shot.
I think its great when music is free for new artists. Its like a jump start to being known. My uncle has spent years trying to sell music but because he isnt well known he doesnt get much sales. If you have a good album but you arent well known release it for free and get some fans.
Jono,
I listened to you album almost a year ago when you were first co-hosting FLOSS Weekly. I totally dig the guitar and the some of the industrial production (track samples in Edge of Design). I’m curious why, on Dollar Plauge, you mix black metal vocals with … high pitched vocals. Anyhow, great work.
I think that if you get interest from any established musicians, that would be a great way to go. I listen to the Metalcast podcast and there’s a surprising amount of contemporary European black metal being produced. Doing some collaboration work will definitely circulate your name among other musicians.
Looking forward to your next release!
I know of at least one artist that’s doing this and doing it well. Del The Funky Homosapien has been releasing a ton of free music, mostly through bandcamp.com, including back catalog stuff.
http://delthefunkyhomosapien.com/
He is currently embracing many release models including free downloads (flac, mp3, ogg, etc…) free streaming on the page, and pay-for-download depending on the album. I know he came to town last year so he’s touring as well.
What I don’t know is how giving much of his music away for free has affected his popularity. The guy was popular before he got into free distribution of content.
I fully support free music and think it’s a fantastic idea. In theory. In reality I listen to non-free music all the time. How about you guys (in case you still read this old stuff)? Jono, every time you talk about music, you mention Slayer and Megadeth – bands that I love as well, but that are certainly not on Jamando… Do you listen to free music or are you like me – supporting the idea, but being too lazy to dig through tons of awful techno remixes until you find something interesting?
and by the way – I like “Denied by Reign”, but would have never discovered it without hearing about it on LUGradio.