Although music streaming continues to take main stage as the dominant form of music consumption, the value of physical should not be discounted, with vinyl in particular making a strong showing. Here we look at some of the top vinyl services for increasing an artist’s revenue.
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Guest post by Raquel Dixit of Symphonic Blog
As music-streaming sites continue to gain popularity and digital music downloads take over, it is safe to assume any physical music sales must be dead… right? WRONG. While CD’s and cassette tapes may have come and gone just as many fads in any industry do,
Vinyls are making a come back. Popularized by millennials, through stores like Urban Outfitters and other record indie shops, vinyl records are making a come back with this “hipster like” trend. While we all love our online playlists easily accessed by music listening devices or even our smart phones, some still take the time to purchase old fashioned records despite it’s reputation for being pricier than your regular old CD. This makes it not only trendy and fun for fans to collect, but great for you as an artist to profit off of as well.
More and more of today’s most popular artists are releasing their music to not only Spotify as a digital product, but to vinyl service companies as well. It’s a common misconception that vinyl’s are only found in old record shops or at your grandma’s neighborhood garage sale.
Today, artists of all genres use vinyl services to connect with music lovers all over. These vinyl services have members who sign up for some sort of subscription to receive vinyl’s from different artists and genres. This concept takes an old fashioned product and revolutionizes it into a modern community where artist can share their music to new fans or followers. We did some research and found our top picks in the industry.
Here were some of the top vinyl services independent artists can use to increase revenue!
VNYL
This website primarily target’s a younger crowd by taking the retro style of vinyl records and combining it with modern day music streaming. When users sign up for their site, it suggests synching up with a Spotify music playlist in order to learn the listeners taste in music. This function is a great way for artists to connect with fanbases they have already established on previously used social media and music streaming platforms. They then send you three vinyls a month based on some of your own personal picks and some picks curated by VNYL Staff team. VNYL is highly user friendly and allows artist to submit requests to sell their own vinyls as part of the site’s subscription deal. When you submit your music to VNYL as an artist not only will you be able to get songs featured on their customized Spotify Playlists, but they will also press and send vinyl record’s out to subscribers!
Feed Bands
Feed bands specializes directly with releasing independent artist’s music! They believe in using their services to connect artists and listeners in a more intimate manner where new music discoveries are almost inevitable. Their site focuses on supporting independent music sales and giving listeners a unique experience unlike any other music mix that they may have heard in the past. Free Bands provides artists with a free profile allowing them to connect with others all over the world and also allows you to sell other merchandised products to fans as well! You also keep 100% of the sale after posting and selling some merch and or vinyls! Once your music is submitted it gets put into the submissions list where it be curated to specified users Check it out and gain some new fans with Feed Bands!
Qrates
Qrates is essentially a DIY like version of the vinyl sales world. Qrates will customize uniquely designed vinyls for your merchandise collection at a great cost, however, it is not designed to be sent out in any type of membership. Instead, Qrates sets up artists with a personal online store to sell vinyls alongside a digital streamed version of your tracks. You can sell a variety of things here and Qrates will even provide you with digital marketing data to track sales and tons of other functions. Qrates is also a distribution service that connects you with fans worldwide by getting your vinyls sold in record shops. Rather than random deliveries that were used by the previous vinyl services mentioned, this one allows for artists with some experience to do their own thing and market towards existing fans and followers!
Vinylify
Vinylify is one of the quickest and easiest vinyl websites to use! There website makes it super simple for your customized vinyl to be only a few clicks away. You can add up to ten minutes of music per side, as well as submit your own album artwork. Vinylify has a quick webpage set up allowing you to create this customized vinyl in just a matter of minutes. According to their FAQ’s page, “one personalized record will cost you 99 euros. This includes the album cover, record label and free shipping worldwide.” Crafted by German engineers in Amsterdam, Vinylify records produces only top quality sound that is sure to excite your fans.