December 30, 2011

Top 3 Recommended Reads of 2011 & A Happy New Year


2011 has been a great year for us here at Jango, and hopefully for you & your music as well. We're thrilled to see more than 50,000 artists let us promote their music (thank you for the confidence!). We have an ambitious agenda for 2012, and hope you'll join us in the new year as well.

With the Holiday Special still running, and bands loading up on Play Credits to kick off 2012, we wanted to share some useful strategies & ideas to help you make the most of your online promotion efforts.





These recommended reads comes courtesy of our friends at CDBaby & Music Think Tank. Lots of useful information about the music industry and the outlook for 2012; you can even find out why MTT thinks you should give away your music for free.

Music Think Tank - Permission Marketing vs. Self-Entitled Marketing For Musicians

Music Think Tank - Why You Should Give Your Music Away For Free

CDBaby - Digital Music Sales & Revenues By Retailer

Thank you all for being part of Jango Airplay - we look forward promoting your music in 2012. We're investing in new features to make our service even better and your feedback is valuable to us, so as always, please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Happy New Year from the Jango Airplay team!

December 16, 2011

Airplay Holiday Special



Starting today throughout December 31st we're having a Holiday special - buy boosts at 50% off. This is a limited offer only so be sure to stock up with play credits and kickstart your 2012 promotion on Jango.




Any boost purchase will give you 2x the amount of play credits to make sure your music is in front of Jango's listeners right into 2012. The offer is available to monthly subscribers only. To become a monthly subscriber, simply select a package from the 'purchase' page and then you take advantage of the offer.

Happy Holidays from Jango!

December 13, 2011

Band Of The Month - Glowbug


Meet Glowbug - an electronic/ambient artist who, after only 3 weeks on Jango Airplay, made it to the Top 10. He just released a new EP available for free download, and is working on the film score for a new movie. Here's his interview!

Describe Glowbug's sound in one sentence?
Unfiltered emotion though an ambient wash.

When was Glowbug formed and where?
Glowbug was formed in Bellingham, Washington near the end of 2010. At the time my previous band, Idiot Pilot, was going on hiatus so I decided to try to create a type of music that I had been rolling around in my head for a while. It didn’t take long before Glowbug grew legs of its own and just took off.  Currently I live in Los Angeles, California and I am working on the next Glowbug LP.

Name three people who have influenced your music, and tell us why? Living or dead.
Musically, I have too many influences to name, but I think that Glowbug specifically takes a lot of cues form My Bloody Valentine, which is a band I always loved growing up. Loveless is one of the best records ever made. That band obviously opened up the doors for what artists were able to do with reverb and unconventional mixing in a pop format.  I have also loved U2 for as long as I can remember and have drawn a lot of influence from them, especially in the way that The Edge plays guitar. I like beautiful simplicity in songwriting, and there are a lot of tricks that he uses in the way his guitar chords flow over the bass movement, which I try to draw from. After that, I would go with my parents, because without them I wouldn’t be here to have musical influences in the first place.

How do you connect with fans and get them involved in your music?
With any project that I do, I try very hard to stay connected with fans on a very personal level.  Nobody really has to pay for music if they don’t want to anymore, so if people make that choice to support you as an artist it is because they respect you and they almost think of you as a friend. That is how I would like Glowbug fans to feel, like we are on the same level, because in reality we are. The idea of the unattainable rockstar image is appropriate for some things, but it’s not something that I particularly like, especially with this band in particular. Other than that, I really just try to stay current and keep the music coming so that there is also something new to enjoy.

What do you like the most about Jango Airplay?
The listener statistics are very interesting and helpful. I like to be able to see what other bands Glowbug fans are into, mostly for my own curiosity and I like being surprised by the results. I am a fan of so many different genres of music and it’s cool to see that other people are too. Jango listeners seem to have very eclectic and honest preferences, and that is a great thing.

Is there any recent project you'd like to share with us? Tell us about it.
I just released a free EP called Covered In Lights Vol. 1, which you can get right here:


It’s got covers of Radiohead, The Pixies and more, and I am working on Vol. 2 as well. I am also currently scoring a film called Lily & Kat (http://lilyandkat.com), which is about to start production in NYC. I’ve been having an awesome time working with the director, Micael Preysler, on capturing the emotion of particular scenes through the filter of these songs. It’s going to be a great film.

Are you guys playing live and do you have any shows coming up soon?
Glowbug is currently deep in recording land and won’t be doing any shows very soon. However, I am about to head out on tour with one of my other projects, Hyro Da Hero, who is a killer MC from Houston, Texas.  I co-wrote his latest record with him, as well as members from The Blood Brothers and At The Drive-In, and I am so proud to be touring behind it. It’s really a fantastic album, sort of a hip-hop and punk hybrid.  We are going to be in the UK in February and then Australia in March after that. Tour dates are here: http://www.hyrodahero.com/

Connect with Glowbug here:
http://www.jango.com/music/Glowbug
http://www.facebook.com/GlowbugOfficial
http://glowbug.bandcamp.com/

December 7, 2011

Use Social Media To Connect With Fans


This week's recommended read from Music Think Tank talks about building fan relationships on social networking sites and how to communicate, involve and grow your online fanbase. Whether you're new to the game or a Social Media pro this article has some great advice on how build fan relationships. With the tools available on Jango Airplay - Email list & Facebook/Twitter integration - you're on to a good start, and it doesn't take much effort so you can use the extra time to be on Social Media.



If you want to connect with your fans nowadays you have be where your fans are and get them involved in your music. When you add links & messages to your Airplay profile you give listeners & fans the opportunity to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, your blog/website etc.. But how do you control the conversation from there? Driving traffic to your pages and sites is only the first step in building fan relationships, fans must be nurtured and given the right incentives to get involved in your music.

Stay tuned for more news!

/The Jango Airplay Team