Ina Kirilova

Alive and kicking – that is how the music industry looked like in Amsterdam over the past weekend, where the Amsterdam Dance Event 2009 took place. Shy Dutch sun, laughter, cigarette smoke and beer enhanced the mood of the buzzing music crowd in front of the Felix Meritis. I was hyped to meet our partners from around the world and network hardcore. I am not quite sure why I had such high expectations, when I have been to such events before and in the end, they are all the same. People do want to meet, but nobody really expects anything to come out of this, so motivation is high just for a few hours. Nobody calls when you do not show up. Neither did we actually… The only thing that remains constant is people’s desire to party.

Nevertheless a few random things made an impression on me. For some reason, CD sales of compilations have increased in Australia. Unfortunately I did not understand why this is so but it made me very happy nonetheless. It is always good news to hear that people are still spending money on music.

Another “strange” fact is that there are companies who try to fight illegal downloads by chasing torrents’ websites, forums, blogs, etc. This seems a bit like a lost cause to me, since music gets leaked either by people who did spend their money on music or by people who are in the industry themselves. Good luck to these companies that think that they can put an end to this.

And last, there are so many wannabe artists out there and they do not realize it that when they approach a ‘real’ artist their chance of promoting their music does not get much higher. Asking questions such as: “How can I send a promo to you, because I would like to get some feedback on my music?” most likely will not bring anything. I am not sure how they really imagine a busy DJ to sit down and go through 700 emails, listen to all demos and email them back a list of suggestions for improvement. At the same time if they are really such big fans, I am pretty sure that they know how to use google, facebook, find myspace artist’s page, etc, etc and try to establish some form of contact through these media. The industry is just so interconnected that most of the time there is not even much space for newcomers unless they were carrying someone’s record crate before they were invited to join the party. Apparently such was the case of Loco Dice.