Hipsonic Blog

New Music Canada

hipsonic — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:07:10 +0100

Hipsonic on the go!

hipsonic — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:57:20 +0100

You can now access Hipsonic with your smartphone at www.hipsonic.com/mobile. Check it out!

Hipsonic has a new face!

hipsonic — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:58:19 +0100

Hello everyone! We are proud to present our new and improved website. We've changed the look & feel and added many new features so make sure to try them out. We hope you like it as much as we do! The Hipsonic Team

Message from Hipsonic's Artistic Director

hipsonic — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:52:48 +0100

Hello and Welcome to Hipsonic! My name is Alain St-Jean, Hipsonic's Founder and Artistic Director. For more than 15 years, I have been working actively in the Canadian music industry as talent booker, artistic director, artist manager, producer, musician, composer... and more! I have been involved in the production of major shows and events such as the Canada Day Celebrations, the Juno Awards Press Conference, IFEA (International Festivals and Events Association), Much Music's Electric Circus. Over the past 10 years, I worked for the National Capital Commission (NCC) in Ottawa as an Artistic Director. Our team produced shows such as Canada Day on Parliament Hill and Winterlude's Snowbowl just to name a few. I also had the privilege to work with some of Canada's musical icons such as Randy Bachman (The Guess Who, BTO), Daniel Lanois (Producer for U2 & Peter Gabriel), Tom Cochrane & Red Rider, Buffy Sainte-Marie... and presented other Canadian artists and bands such as Rufus Wainwright, Kalen Porter (Canadian Idol), Jully Black, Keshia Chanté and DJ Champion & G-Strings BEFORE they became household names! Check out some of the artists we presented outdoors, in sub zero temperatures! This is what I call "cool" Canadian artists... I presented thousands of artists, produced hundreds of shows, learned the music business and made precious music industry contacts ... and now, I want to help YOU get discovered! Are you ready? Let's go! Create your FREE account now by clicking here ... and start promoting your talent within a few minutes. It's that simple! Be a part of our Canadian Indie Music community and come showcase your talent. See you online! Alain

What is the MAPL System?

hipsonic — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:17:52 +0100

The MAPL* system refers to the four elements in the Radio Regulations used to qualify musical selections as Canadian. These elements were selected, as part of the Canadian content regulations, following an extensive public hearing process. The MAPL system is designed to stimulate all components of the Canadian music industry and to be as simple as possible for the industry to implement and regulate. Objectives The primary objective -- a cultural one -- is to encourage increased exposure of Canadian musical performers, lyricists and composers to Canadian audiences. The secondary objective -- an industrial one -- is to strengthen the Canadian music industry, including both the creative and production components. How does it work? 1. To qualify as 'Canadian content' a musical selection must generally fulfill at least two of the following conditions: M (music) -- the music is composed entirely by a Canadian. A (artist) -- the music is, or the lyrics are, performed principally by a Canadian. P (production) -- the musical selection consists of a live performance that is (i) recorded wholly in Canada, or (ii) performed wholly in Canada and broadcast live in Canada. L (lyrics) -- the lyrics are written entirely by a Canadian. 2. There are four special cases where a musical selection may qualify as Canadian content. The musical selection was recorded before January 1972 and meets one of the above conditions. It is an instrumental performance of a musical composition written or composed by a Canadian. It is a performance of a musical composition that a Canadian has composed for instruments only. The musical selection was performed live or recorded after September 1, 1991 and, in addition to meeting the criterion for either artist or production, a Canadian who has collaborated with a non-Canadian receives at least half of the credit for both music and lyrics.

Gene Simmons looking for 3 new Canadian bands

hipsonic — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:24:17 +0100

This is a chance of a lifetime. Gene Simmons is looking for 3 new Canadian bands to sign on his record label. Here is what you need to do ... right now!

Bands & Fans de "Clic ton Band"

hipsonic — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:50:28 +0100

Si vous visitez Hipsonic.com pour la première fois... merci et bienvenue! Vous voulez créer un site web gratuit avant de vous inscrire au concours "Clic ton Band"? Allez-y... cliquez ici pour créer votre profil! C'est simple et rapide. Voici comment participer au concours «Clic ton band» Toute personne intéressée à participer à «Clic ton band» devra compléter un formulaire de participation (disponible en ligne au www.clictonband.com) et soumettre deux (2) démos audio (via Internet) de compositions originales. Les participants devront également faire parvenir une photo récente où tous les membres sont présents et le texte des chansons soumises doit être envoyé en pièce jointe avec les démos. «Clic ton band» exige également de connaitre les auteurs/compositeurs des démos. «Clic ton band» se réserve le droit de refuser une candidature dont le formulaire est incomplet ou qui ne répond pas à ces exigences. L’inscription au concours est gratuite (aucun frais d’inscription). Bonne chance! Alain St-Jean Directeur artistique Hipsonic.com

10 Musicians Who Rock the Web

hipsonic — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:30:09 +0100

Check this out ... 10 Musicians Who Rock the Web

MySpace is going to be the future of music, not record labels.

hipsonic — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:02:01 +0100

Inspired by Rupert Murdoch Writes Fast Company writer Ellen McGirt in this month's cover story on MySpace: " As Michael Nash, EVP of digital strategy and business development for Warner Music, puts it, 'Unlocking the social value in the context of an online community is one of our most important priorities.' Nash, who is on the board of the new venture, worked with MySpace in its pre-Murdoch days, developing promotions with acts including REM. 'About 20% to 30% of total traffic on MySpace is music traffic,' he says. 'We saw that lightning in a bottle, the social interaction around music and fans.'" For Nash, the MySpace deal may be just the thing to save the music industry from destruction, at least for a while. 'The traditional music model has really already sort of expired,' he admits. 'We were seeing tremendous value in our content, but not a lot of revenue being developed.' The dream: As users begin to organize music they like into streaming playlists that can be shared with friends (and that other users can vote up, Digg-style, or subscribe to), the computer becomes a community-generated radio. Supported by advertising. And with the already existing MySpace swirl around celebrities and events, the industry envisions hordes of fans flocking to concerts, which are much easier to profit from. 'We needed a completely different business model to unlock that value,' Nash says."

MySpace Moves Into Music

hipsonic — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:39:44 +0100

Article by Brian Morrissey... NEW YORK - MySpace is launching its ambitious music initiative, betting its broad reach, social tools and brand advertiser relationships can craft nothing less than a new business model for the ailing industry. MySpace Music offers its 120 million users the opportunity to stream full songs for free, build playlists and buy tracks from Amazon or as ringtones from Jamster. MySpace will also offer concert ticket purchases and merchandise. The music will come free of digital rights management protection. The initiative is part of a far-reaching effort by the News Corp.-owned company to play a pivotal role in the evolution of the music industry, which has suffered from declining CD sales and continued piracy. "There's no question" advertising will play a major part of that model, said Amit Kapur, chief operating officer at MySpace, since consumers have clearly favored ad-supported models over paid content. "In order to really meet the needs of users, you need to unlock the content," he said. "The only way you'll solve that is having a free, ad-supported environment." MySpace chose to partner with Amazon over Apple because Amazon offers music free of rights management restrictions and variable pricing, Kapur said. MySpace Music is running campaigns from McDonald's, Sony Pictures, State Farm and Toyota. The music player includes a persistent 300 x 250 pixels banner ad. MySpace is also adding custom integration. Toyota, for instance, signed on to hold "Toyota Tuesdays" with an offer of free downloads. McDonald's is skinning the MySpace Music Player. MySpace's unique position as a social hub will give it a leg up on other companies like iMeem, Spiralfrog and Last.fm that are building ad-supported online music services, according to Kapur. "None of those have taken off at Web scale," he said. As a sign of how seriously the music industry takes the initiative, MySpace has inked deals with major labels Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI. It also has an agreement with the Orchard, a distributor of independent artists. Kapur declined to say if the labels have an ownership stake in MySpace Music, which is set up as a separate company, but he acknowledged, "They have incentives for this to succeed." The music push is part of MySpace's quiet effort over the past two years to recast itself from a social network to a new type of portal. While attention has focused on Facebook, MySpace has built out its portal-like offerings, where it can sell broad reach to brand advertisers at a much higher premium than user-created profile pages. Music is at the heart of MySpace, which built its huge audience in part on its popularity with bands. The site has over 5 million artists with profiles and 65 percent of users have players on their profiles. Thanks to its social networking roots, MySpace can tackle what its execs deemed "the bookstore problem" of discovery, Kapur said. Music was an obvious first step for MySpace to explore social distribution, he said. With MySpace Music, friends can discover artists through their playlists and friend updates. The same model could easily apply to other content, including video, Kapur said. "You see them being curators of what's cool," he said of users. "You can envision that taking place with other content."