Hypocritical Rantings About a Contest I'll Probably Enter

So I just came across this article about Universal and Ubetoo pairing. For those of you who don't know what Ubetoo is, don't worry, no one else does either. It's a site similar to CD Baby and offers artists self-publishing and distribution options. Anyway, Universal is partnering with them to basically run a huge contest to find bands to sign. I'm finding the whole thing a little weird. 

Ubetoo's main selling point is that it allows the artist keep 100% of the royalties from their music. Yeah, you read it right, 100%. So the idea that people are gonna compete to get a record deal so they can receive maybe 15%, seems odd to me. You venture to Ubetoo to experience self-distribution and to have a completely different model than a conventional label. And while you're at Ubetoo you can compete to win a chance to be involved in what you went to Ubetoo to get away from? I don't know, seems funky. 

I get that maybe some aren't out there searching for self-distribution because they don't want a record deal, but because they can't get one, but still. 

Anyway after all that ranting, I'll confess that I'll probably give it a shot. I mean GPT is trying to do the self-publishing thing, but I'll take the cut in royalties for some power behind our record. Lets face it; they have connections, marketing ability, and money we probably won't ever see. 

I suppose you could do worse than Universal as well. At least it’s not like Fueled By Ramen or some other indie label that’s probably using Ubetoo for their distribution. As a business student, the idea and details I have come to learn about record deals leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but the musician and kid in me wants nothing more than to be a rock star. If I can maybe do it on Ubetoo, I guess I’ll give it a shot. 

You there! Tube it up!

Recently I've been really getting into a lot of these Youtube artists. Ya know these guys and gals who put all their music out on Youtube and have cool videos that go with their songs. This has actually become it's own form of distribution in a way and I think it's amazing. I can't seem to wrap my head around wanting to do it, but it's cool nonetheless. I mean every time you've got a song, not only do you have to write one, but you then have to film yourself recording it and post it up on for all the world to see. And all the world does see it. And comments on it. In one respect it's cool that you're going to get immediate feedback, but you know that half of the comments are coming from jerks who have nothing better to do than talk crap about your videos. Anyway, I digress. 
As far as Youtube for distribution goes, it's not a bad deal. After a certain number of views Youtube pays you and their are plenty of people out there making a living off it. There's vloggers and reviewers and comedy shows that all get payed simply to talk about how they feel about stuff in front of their computer cameras. Talk about a sweet gig. Artists get found all the time, especially hot girls with acoustic guitars (which there seems there will be no shortage of anytime soon.) A lot of times these Youtube success stories can bleed over into the real film and TV world. One of my favorite Youtube acts, Pomplamoose, was featured in a slew of commercials for Honda. One of the members, Jack Conte, does his own side project music that is weird and much more technical and still is surprisingly popular. People just seem to love everything these guys do. 
There are tons of artists doing creative original things like Freddie Wong who does better than movie quality CGI from his home and Trudbol who does 50's style acapella covers. I just can't get enough of any of it. This might just be a gimmick that really isn't so gimmicky.