Online Music Heroes #1: Pomplamoose

Social media has totally changed the music industry. Where it used to be virtually impossible to get someone to listen to your music, including prospective record companies, it’s now incredibly easy to use the Internet as a vehicle for self promotion and publicity. Now, instead of waiting for a rare opportunity to perform to just a handful of people, it’s now possible to share your music overnight to potentially millions of people from all corners of the world.

Sites such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and Last.FM are just a few of the more famous and popular Web sites that musicians, singers and bands are all using to get their music out there into the homes of potential fans, customers and record labels. Publishing and marketing on social media Web sites is an incredibly fast and inexpensive way to promote your music. If you want to be successful, you’ve got to get your self noticed and you’ve got to get your music heard.

In the first of a brand new series, we’re going to showcase and applaud talented and unique musicians and artists who have used the Internet to promote their incredible music. You may have heard about these artists before or you may not. Either way, we want to celebrate how the Internet has afforded us the opportunity of discovering new talent and and new music.

Meet Pomplamoose

Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte are boyfriend and girlfriend. Together, they are sublime indie-rock band Pomplamoose. Their music combines Nataly’s warm, inviting vocals with Jack’s creative musical virtuosity. Every instrument in all of their tracks is performed individually by Jack and Nataly and then mixed using Pro Tools.

What I love about Pomplamoose is how passionate they are about music. Just from watching and listening to their performances throughout their numerous online videos, they are not only incredibly talented musicians, but their love of music radiates from all that they do: From their faces, their concentration, their smile, and from the exquisite polyphony of voice and instrument; their unique sound is an endearing experience.

Beat The Horse

Watch and listen to “Beat the Horse” by Pomplamoose:

“VideoSongs”

A huge part of Pomplamoose’s marketing is the use of their music videos that they like to call “VideoSongs“. These VideoSongs, which are produced in Final Cut Pro, showcase the amount of work, fun, and passion the band have for music.

“What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice), and if you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds).”
- Pomplamoose

A perfect example of a “VideoSong” is Pomplamoose’s cover of Beyoncé’s hit single “Single Ladies”, below. This unique interpretation of “Single Ladies” brings together a startlingly impressive and entertaining combination of editing, mixing, performance, harmonization and subtle humor.

Single Ladies by Beyoncé (Cover)

Solo work

Both band members also record and perform as solo artists.

I wanted to share one of Jack Conte’s tracks with you called “On Planets” because it demonstrates much of what I like about Pomplamoose: The ability to play multiple instruments, the love of acoustic and analog instruments, the detail and diligence that goes into creating and recording unusual and interesting sound, and of course the brilliant video editing.

Jack Conte, “On Planets”:

Music For the Masses

Here’s yet another reason why I am so fond of Pomplamoose: They totally understand the current state of the record industry. One of their Web pages states, “Support artists directly, cut out the middle-man.” And that’s one heck of a winning distribution model. Here’s how Pomplamoose share and distribute their music throughout the numerous Web sites and social media pages they maintain:

  • Give away free mp3s of some of their music, mostly covers.
  • They sell their music for only $1.
  • They allow you to listen to their tracks in their entirety on their Web sites.
  • They sell their tracks in a variety of ways: PayPal, MySpace, Google Checkout, iTunes etc…
  • They sell their music on iTunes

The free audio and the audio that costs $1 is an incredibly smart system. I think its safe to say that the most people are willing to spend on any digital audio track is $1. It makes sense, and it sounds fair: It’s affordable for the audience and it’s potentially profitable for the musicians because a lower price is more likely to encourage more people to purchase the music.

The Future

I’m very excited to see what the future holds for Pomplamoose. They have been around on the social media scene for over a year now and are currently unsigned to any major record label. With the fan base Pomplamoose have acquired in such a short period of time through the extremely popular VideoSong series, along with such raw talent (both vocally and musically) and indeed chemistry that Nataly and Jack possess, it seems as though their greatest success is about unfold.

Learn more about Pomplamoose on MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and iTunes.

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Scott

Scott is the AudioJungle Site Manager. His greatest passion is music, "Music is the soundtrack to the movie my eyes direct." Scott composes and produces audio using a Casio Privia PX-400R digital piano, an M-Audio Oxygen 49 MIDI controller and Logic Pro software on an iMac. Follow him on Twitter @scottwills