However ordinary you think your environment might be, you’re exotic to somebody. Use that as a selling point.
Deepest, darkest Pakuranga
I’m from New Zealand. I can’t think of anything more mundane than growing up in Pakuranga and spending the vast majority of one’s life in Auckland.
And yet, when I exported myself to the UK, two strange things happened. First, I became somehow more ‘impressive’ and quotable back home, because I was suddenly an ex-pat kiwi teaching at a British university (I think perhaps they imagine Hogwarts). And second, over here in the UK I’m looked at as an ‘International Expert’, and thus accorded far more attention than many of my peers who have every bit as much to say as I do, but suffer the ‘misfortune’ of being local.
I can’t imagine I’d get anywhere near the amount of attention I get if I’d just stayed in Auckland, or if I was just another English lecturer in an English university. Being displaced has conveyed an air of extra significance to what I do. It might be slight, and it might even be subconscious, but it definitely seems to be a real thing.
One thing I noticed from the Dutch people in the music and media industries was that they prioritised their unique national character. Language was obviously important, but pretty much everything they did highlighted the sense of place, which was really nice.
And the people I spoke to were really enthusiastic about the Dutch media environment. There’s a real sense of optimism there, not entirely unlike the music industry optimism I encountered in Belfast not so long ago. That stuff’s really contagious.
New Zealand music has a sense of cohesion about it in terms of marketing music to the world. And while the concepts of Dutch-ness and New Zealand-ness are deeply problematic (especially in the light of colonial histories), there is something unique about the environment within which music is created that cannot help but contribute to the sound of that music.
Put it down to the psychological effects of geography, architecture and town planning.
What to do with this? Well, when exporting music to the world, you could use the place of origin as a good hook on which to tell the story of the music. When selling the music locally, never underestimate the instinct of local pride and parochialism.
The people who need to get this most, and — at least here in the UK — seem to understand it least, is local radio. Don’t make their mistake.
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What’s interesting about where you’re from? How could that be used as part of the story through which you promote and sell music?
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4 Comments
Interesting post this one. I was at a conference last year about urban planning and the creative industries. One of presentations was about a project that was examining ways to make a city suburb a more lively, vital part of the creative industries of the city in question. The idea was let’s pump money into infrastructure and watch those creatives roll up (“if you build it they will come”).
What a shame, I thought at the time. In music sub-cultures suburbs are interesting precisely because they’re uninteresting. They inspire because they’re uninspiring; the desire to escape combined with a desire to create can produce something amazing.
I remember thinking precisely what this post is titled, that where you’re from is always interesting to someone. If dull suburbs weren’t interesting to someone then those ‘Sounds of the Suburbs’ compilations wouldn’t sell by the bucket-load and I wouldn’t have spent my teenage years wishing I was a bit more middle-class and therefore had something of substance to rebel against.
Dave
Hi Andrew,
I too have observed this phenomenon. I think it was illustrated rather well in a scene from a film called Addicted to Love http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118556 . The dialogue from which I used to start a new blog http://www.supermantheory.com/2006/08/the_superman_th.html which until now I had forgotten about.
Its definitely an interesting concept for music marketing as well as a whole host of other things in life generally.
You have inspired me to resurrect the blog so if anyone has any examples of what I am calling “The Superman Theory†do please let me know – superman@davidmurray.eu
No question.
Place of origin is very important in the plot that surrounds music. It adds to its authenticity and gives the listener (who is often initially a reader) some tools to work with.
So, when I was at Popkomm introducing Einstellung to dozens of European labels, agents, promoters and anyone else i could get my hands on it, was always with the line “…from Birmingham”. When your talking to a Scandinavian heavy rock dude the phrase “from Birmingham” will set you up extremely well.
And don’t forget, as Sheryl Garratt (from Birmingham) told us at the 2006 Music & Place conference at MIPC in a paper called “What happens when music has no place”, the internet itself can be conceptualized as a place.
This is so true…it always makes a huge difference when you promote your music as where you come from and i think i have been just lucky. You must have heard of 1000′s of record labels popping out of europe, uk,us, australia but where i come from has made things pretty special for me and got me some heavy attention worldwide…today i am happy to get all the respect for being the founder of Dubai’s first & only independent dance record label which is getting some decent attention worldwide. The fact that Dubai is being promoted heavily worldwide with what they are doing and this helps us bigtime in getting the attention too….
If you guys get a chance then do check out our label page here http://www.myspace.com/raisanirecords or our new updated website which is coming shortly http://www.raisani-records.com
Keep up the great work andrew, been reading ur blog for sometime now
Peace
Haneef Raisani
Founder & AnR Director
Raisani Records
Dubai
UAE