Interview: Marco Kalnenek from Weirdomusic.com

The is the first of a series of post about the online music industry blogosphere and the people that literally make it happen. Our firstguest is Marco Kalnenek from Weirdomusic.com.

- Introduce yourself to our readers. Who are you and what is your background?

My name is Marco, I’m 42 years old and I live in Heerlen, the Netherlands. I’m a trained musician (piano/keyboards) and I played in some bands when I was about twenty. For various reasons I decided not to pursue an active career as a musician. For about ten years music was mainly a hobby, while I taught myself to build websites and was active in various online music communities. In 2001 I started my website Weirdomusic.com (www.weirdomusic.com) and three years later I started my label WM Recordings (www.wmrecordings.com), probably the first Creative Commons netlabel in my country.

- What relation do you have with music (past-time, passion, a business)?

After I lost my dayjob in 2008 I decided that now was the time to take my musical activities to the next level. In october 2009 I officialy started my company WM Digital Services (www.wmdigitalservices.nl), so I’m now involved in the music biz full time. I coach young bands, I still run my record label and I also arrange digital distribution of music for various bands and small labels. I’m also organising more and more events, offering young bands a place to showcase their talents.

- What do you think of the current state of music?

The state of the music business is something we could discuss for days. I think that we are going through exciting, but at the same time difficult times. The “old” music industry still has trouble catching up with modern technology, but at the same time young artists are taking full advantage of all the exciting opportunities the internet has to offer: anything from sharing music through social media to creating innovative virals to promote their products. Bands and artists have more options than ever to get their music heard and I think that’s a good thing. The days of selling 10 million copies of a physical album are over. Bands and labels should get over that and work out new ways to create an audience and get them to listen to their stuff, come to concerts, buy the t-shirt and tell all their friends how great you are.

- Where do you think it’s heading?

The sale of physical products (CDs) is declining rapidly, but there is still an audience for physical product. We’ll probably see more ‘deluxe editions’ of new releases, including all sorts of bonus materials. Also, vinyl is back and here to stay. Besides that, the shift is from physical to digital of course. Music downloads through iTunes and similar stores are still growing, but the biggest shift will be to online streaming. Services like Spotify are growing in popularity and Apple’s iCloud will have great impact on how we will consume our music in the years to come.

- What are your favorite websites to discover new talent, any tips for our readers?

The best places to discover new talent are not music websites, but places like Twitter and Facebook. That’s where new artists are being discovered and hits are being created. But if I have to name one music website I would say The Free Music Archive (http://freemusicarchive.org/). This is a great place to discover awesome music, both old and new. And the great thing is that it’s free to download and legal to share it with the rest of the world. Of course all free albums on my label are available there as well.

- What role will the internet play in the music industry future?

I already answered part of that question above: in the future – and in fact it’s happening already – all the music you could ever imagine hearing will be available anywhere, anytime, on any device. Kids listen to music on their mobile phones, their parents use their iPad to browse through their music collection, while other use Spotify and similar streaming services to discover new stuff. Our music collections will be “in the cloud” and hopefully more and more historical recordings will be made available to the general public. It may scare the “old” music industry, but I think it’s very exciting!

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