I often get asked, “If I post my music on Broadjam, can I sell my music?” As you know, there are many ways to distribute your music on Broadjam. You can sell downloads from your profile or your own Broadjam hosted URL, and you can submit to Film and TV opportunities. There are also many ways to get exposure on Broadjam. However, without populating all of your songs with detailed metadata, they probably won’t be found, and they probably won’t be sold.
What do I mean? Go to your profile page and click Edit button next to your Songs. Then click the Edit button next to any one of your individual songs. You will see a list of “Metadata” fields that surround a song, including Primary and Secondary Genres, Subject Matter, Tempo, Moods, Lyric Credits, Story of the Song, etc. Simply put, metadata is data about data. It is the information that identifies your song.
So if a fan is searching for a specific characteristic of a song on Broadjam, they select the appropriate Metadata from the drop down fields in the search engine. For example, let’s say a fan is looking for a Country-Rock song about war. They would select Country-Rock from the Primary Genre dropdown and Political & Social – War from the Subject Matter 1 drop down. As of today, this search returns eight songs. If your songs do not have Genre and/or Subject Matter Metadata, it will not appear in these search results, even if it met the criteria. This is critical information for anyone looking for your songs.
A similar search engine is provided to Destination Providers (music supervisors, publishers, labels, etc.), who determine which songs are selected for our Delivery listings. When you submit a song to a Film & TV destination, your song is put into a library with all of the other submissions. Within the library, Destination Providers often search for very specific characteristics, such as songs that are 120 beats per minute, male vocal and Country. If the Metadata you have attached to your song meets their search criteria, your song will appear closer to the top of the presented list. All songs are returned and listed, as this is a sorting tool rather than a search mechanism. However, if you have submitted songs without the appropriate metadata, your songs will be sent to the bottom of the list. Of course, other criteria are considered, including peer reviews and the Providers opinion, but metadata is the most critical. Providers are most likely to search by specifics.
To conclude, spend a little time entering the metadata for all of your songs. Whether it’s on Broadjam, or any other site, metadata is an absolute necessity for hosting music online.
Roy
Posted by Broadjam on Apr 3, 2008 in Broadjam Blog
Found what I was looking for after a bit of digging! It’s another excellently-penned tune from John Thomas Oaks called ‘Shadows’. However, as I tried to add this track to my playlist from the music player, the add song link took me to the home page! Another bug for the Bjam techies to investigate perhaps?
Apr 12, 2008/3:16 amHank-You’re right- not contest reviews!
My metadata request would be like Bobby Caputo”s. Instead of a drop down menu, I would like to be able to just type in the similar artist. There is no way to list all of them so let’s just enter it ourselves like we do with the title.
BTW- I hate that anyone knows who the reviewer is. I don’t like sitting in that chair. They should give us numbers. But that’s another blog!
Apr 11, 2008/1:24 pmHi Liz,
I’m pretty sure that that approach only works with the regular review process. I’ve reviewed many song in the contests and they don’t show up in “Completed Reviews”.
Hank Thomas
BTW-Thanks for your recent comments on my song “Money Train”!
Apr 11, 2008/9:34 amGreetings Jim,
If you go to the review section and hit the tab - completed reviews, you will get the name of the artist and the song. The process of elimination will tell you who the artist is even without a title. Hope this narrows the search for you. I think both you and Bobby Caputo have valid points.
Thanks
Liz
Apr 11, 2008/7:00 amGreetings Jim,
If you go to the review section and hit the tab - completed reviews, you will get the name of the artist and the song. The process of elimination will tell you who the artist is even without a title. Hope this narrows the search for you. I think both you and Bobby Caputo have valid points.
Thanks
Liz
Apr 11, 2008/7:00 amI’ve just being doing a review of the Adult Contemporary Monthly Song Contest entries and heard one of the best story songs ever, complete with descriptive and captivating lyrics, hummable melody and pro performance. I tried to find it in the search engine, guessing by title, as I didn’t know the artist (obviously) but failed because the one flaw in the artist’s song was that he didn’t have an easily identifiable title in it. I listened again and tried every possible title I could think of. Still nothing.
If a metadata field for buzzwords was provided, the artists could list key words in the lyrics which would make a song easier to find, but also this may allow a destination provider to search for songs containing certain specific words or themes. For instance, the track that so impressed me I spent 15 minutes trying to look for it, had the stand-out words ’sketchbook’, ‘gallery’, ‘etched in pain’, ’sculpture by Rodin’, ‘grand central station’, ‘paris street’. The musical style was kind of Jimmy Webb. A buzzword field may have allowed me to find this outstanding song. Trouble is, if you’re title doesn’t stand out, your song might never get heard!
If anyone knows who the artist is and what the song’s called, I’d love to know.
Apr 11, 2008/1:43 amCameron,
Thanks for the input, Not sure when we’re going to make the next update, but throw these into the discussion when we do.
Roy
Apr 9, 2008/6:12 pmHey Roy
Here’s some more names that might still be relevant: Steppenwolf, Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Guess Who, Styx, Grand Funk, and Buckcherry 15, a band that has two current hits on the radio right now, “Sorry” and “Crazy B..ch”.
Good luck in L. A. and have fun at the Kodak Theater tonight.
Cameron Smith
Apr 9, 2008/5:51 pmBobby,
This is a good point that you bring up. We are exploring ways to modify the Similar Artist list and keep it updated, but it’s not an easy thing to do. At one point artist like Vanilla Ice or Billy Idol might have made the list, but today they wouldn’t. So we will continue looking at this and try and keep it up to date.
Thanks your thoughts.
Roy
Apr 8, 2008/2:17 pmRoy….
It’s kinda funny….seems like everytime I try to input a song’s metadata concerning “similar” artists, the name I’m thinkin’ about isn’t there….Maybe I’m so unhip it hurts, huh? But, I’m thinkin’ Don Henley and George Jones oughta be there….actually I’m closer to Don Jones or George Henley, but what they hey!..haha
Bobby
Apr 7, 2008/1:30 pm