Musicians Wanted!

Independent musicians – don’t quit your day jobs just yet, but YouTube has some news that just might make you spill that double latte all over the next guy in line as you read this post.

Musicians Wanted is a new initiative from Google’s YouTube Partner Program.

So this means you Mr. coffee shop emo/rocker guy. Take the ear buds out and listen up.

“Whether you make hip-hop, folk, noise-rock, jazz or a genre of your own invention, we are looking for all types of original music content,” wrote Michele Flanner, YouTube music manager, in note posted at midnight PT on the YouTube blog. You can quit your day job…well maybe not. But you should pay attention to this opportunity.

“Our goal in all these partner programs is to help get to that point where they hear the most beautiful words a creative person can hear, which is ‘You can quit your day job,” YouTube head of music business Glenn Brown recently told Wired.com. “And some of our partners have already done that.”

OK, sounds like a lot of hype in an attempt to have us make YouTube some money. Well, there is financial incentive for Google owned, YouTube. However, the opportunity may outway the fact that they will make some money off of this venture.

Indie bands are now being offered a spotlight on YouTube. YouTube employees will be seeking out talented indie bands.
Bands that do get accepted will have the ability to add tour dates, “buy” links for music and merchandise and have more custom design over their pages. A “majority” of the advertising generated from pre-roll, text and overlay ads will go to the band on a monthly basis.

Another advantage to the program if accepted is that bands can also make money when their videos are embedded external sites such as music blogs….like this one =)

OK Go, the first to sign up, left their major label very recently over just this issue.

Here’s what Damian Kulash of OK Go said in a recent report on the YouTube Partners Program, Musicians Wanted.

“What’s tremendously freeing about starting our own label is that we can now distribute our work however we want to, and we can look for new and interesting ways to make a living off of it without constantly chafing against the constraints of a big label with a rat’s nest of conflicting agendas. The YouTube Partners Program, and specifically the Musicians Wanted division of it, is a great example. We can distribute our videos the way we want to (embeddable!), and actually make some money off it, to boot…It’s a pretty obvious win/win.”

So whether you are a major label band who has defected to independent status like video superstars OK Go, or just a great underappreciated indie talent, you should definitely check this program out. Who knows, you may even be able to quit your day job.

Posted on 03/20/10. Back To Blog - Tags: Google, Ok Go, YouTube

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