Image by Man Alive!

The Grammy Awards recognizes indie music in a big way
On February 12, indie music got a big boost when Montreal band Arcade Fire won the Grammy award for Album of the Year. The win was for their their third record, called Suburbs. More than 26 million people tuned into the broadcast, the largest audience in just over a decade.

The other upset of the night was jazz singer Esperanza Spalding’s win for Best New Artist.

Was it an aberration, or a very public sign of the lasting results of the massive change in the recording industry?

I’m hoping it’s the latter.

The Internet erupted, as it often does, when something unexpected happens in popular culture. A chorus of, “Who is Arcade Fire?” and, “Who is Esperanza Spalding?” was heard across the Web, and outraged Justin Bieber fans went so far as to vandalize Spalding’s Wikipedia page.

The surprise of Arcade Fire
I hadn’t heard of Esperanza Spalding, either, but I’m no stranger to Arcade Fire. As a CBC radio junkie, I became aware of the band shortly after the 2004 release of their first record, Funeral. But I have to admit I was among those surprised at their Grammy win.

Surprised, and very happy. Not just because they’re Canadian, but because their Grammy signals a recognition of indie artists and the superb quality of their work.

Extraordinary art with ordinary beginnings
Arcade Fire started as most bands do, playing small community venues, slugging it out, until they began to get attention. They didn’t forget their fans along the way, playing a free outdoor concert before the release of Suburbs.

They also know how to use the Internet to spread the word, most notably teaming up with Google to produce an experimental video for their song “We Used to Wait.”

The mainstream matters less now
The shocked response from celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell also shows how a fragmented audience can work in favour of artists. We can listen to whatever we choose to—iTunes provides access to radio across the globe, in any language and genre. We don’t need to follow commercial radio anymore. We get to create our own playlists.

What some people consider underground artists can have a strong and very loyal following. They simply haven’t hit mainstream media.

At least, not until their momentum crashes like a wave on one of the biggest stages in the world.

Independent is beautiful
You have our own trajectory. Like any artist building a career, even those who appear to be an overnight success, you spend years honing your skills and building an audience. The good news about living in a world with social media and worldwide digital access is the resulting fragmented audience—you have a truly amazing opportunity.

The message here is simple: dedicate yourself to producing your best work and go find your people. Use the smartest tools you can get your hands on to get your message out. And be generous with your fans. They’re waiting for you.

 
A bit of news: the updated Studio Source Creative Services page is up and running, with editing & proofreading services, website reviews, and brainstorming sessions. Details are here.

Editor’s note: I hadn’t intended to do a two-art post on the Myth of Everybody, but casting your customer net too wide is a common problem and worth discussing.

Once upon a time there was a restaurant that offered a huge menu consisting of three types of ethnic food. The menu was so big you could tie a string to it and fly it in a stiff breeze.

The food was, in my humble opinion, a celebration of staggering culinary mediocrity. It was entirely without character—everything tasted like it either came out of a can or was from the “just add water” supply store.

That may sound harsh, but I take my food very seriously.

You run into trouble when you try to sell to everybody. You are forced to dumb down what you have to offer, even if your fascinating combination of goodies gives you lots to talk about.

Ironically, having lots to talk about doesn’t necessarily make for a compelling story.

Let’s try talking about less. If you run a restaurant that makes astonishing soup, you have a compelling story. You can tell your customers you use the finest seasonings, the freshest ingredients (it’s even better if you have a rooftop garden), and make seasonal recipes. Throw in some historical soup trivia, and don’t forget to mention you serve mighty fine soup.

People who love soup will become die hard fans and bring their friends to your restaurant. People who don’t like soup won’t be interested, which is fine, because you can’t please everybody. And you shouldn’t try. (Obviously you sell more than soup, but play along, I’m trying to make a point here.)

Businesses that sell a variety of things, like gift shops, seem to cater to everybody. But they don’t. Some carry fine craft and art, some stock their shelves with imported factory made goods. Not everyone cares that their mother’s birthday gift is handmade, and not everyone can, or wants to, spend the money on an original oil painting. On the other hand, there are lots of people who don’t want a souvenir of their trip to Banff National Park to be made in China.

Trying to sell to everybody is a Catch-22. You can’t focus your message and your audience can’t quite get what you’re about. Sometimes they just don’t believe you (you’re a lawyer and you offer all those services? Thanks, but I think I’ll find someone who’s really good at what I need). Try to please everybody and you’ll feel like you’re chasing ghosts. You won’t have the time or energy to give your real audience your best.

Narrowing your focus is scary at first, but doing what you do very well and delighting the people who love it is exactly what you were aiming for in the first place.

I know. That’s not news. We usually think of the economy in terms of paycheques and employment rates and the price of electricity and groceries. But the “economy” is like a strange fantasy world where we exchange pieces of paper for the work we do. Somebody somewhere put a value on that work, and we more or less agree with that value. The things we buy are also assigned a value. Sometimes that value changes.

It’s pretty weird when you think about it that way.

It gets even weirder when you don’t actually receive little pieces of paper for your work. A lot of the time, there are only numbers on a larger piece of paper that comes from the bank. Sometimes you just look at the numbers on your computer screen.

We can get a little more real. Say I fix your front gate, and you give me a loaf of bread and basket of apples in return. There is a direct exchange between you and me, but the transaction still requires an agreement of value.

It’s the agreement part that can drive you nuts.

I see people underprice their work out of fear that no one will buy it otherwise. These are often artists and craftspeople. There’s a wild variation in style and skill among people who sell the things they make, and therefore an equally huge range of prices. Instead of looking for an established price range in their medium and skill level, and instead of finding the right place to sell it, they panic and undersell—often to the wrong audience.

I see people present their work in a way that undermines their customers’ perceptions of it. A poorly designed website or amateurish business card or retail display doesn’t convey a sense of quality. So by ignoring these important details, they risk losing a portion of their audience, because they break the value agreement.

This may sound stupidly obvious, but people who share agreements on value tend to gravitate towards the same places. They respond to similar visual cues—things like packaging, design, colour, the tone of advertising copy. A television commercial for Kia isn’t going to have the same look and feel as, say, a commercial for Volkswagen. The audience is different. The agreement of value is different. To use the jargon, the demographic is different.

Embarrassing true story: when I started my jewellery business, I signed on to do a show sight-unseen, based on a recommendation from someone who had participated in a show with the same promotions company, but in a different location. My first show, and just to add to the hilarity, it was out of town.

I found myself across from someone who was selling quilted water cooler bottle covers, in the midst of a crowd of customers who balked at a $40 necklace.

The bed and breakfast was lovely.

(Note: never walk into a venue without doing proper recon, even if someone tells you it’s good. They may not have the same perception of value as you do, or they may have had a good experience, but discover some unfortunate inconsistencies down the road.)

You see the problem. If I had found myself at the high end of the price and quality range of the show, I could have been a big fish in a small pond. But I turned out to be a (ahem) donkey. If I’d somehow landed in the midst of the best of the best, I could have beaten everyone on price, but would likely have ended up with the same dilemma: not fitting in with the audience’s perception of value.

The good thing about a construct is it provides a framework. You can find comparable work and see if your pricing fits within the accepted range. You can see how people in your field are presenting that work. You can find untapped audiences by using the framework as a starting point, maybe even push the boundaries of the framework—if you give the audience something they agree is truly valuable.

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