Blogocentric Formulations

Running away with Midnight Hour

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Song: "Running Away"
Artist: Midnight Hour
Album: Midnight Hour

While we're on the topic of indie musicians, let me tell you a little story about how not to market yourself. On the one hand, this was back in 2006 when streaming music wasn't quite as prevalent as it is now, but I originally heard this song on an episode of The Ghost Whisperer. Now, whereas my previous entry "You can start all over again with Dana Glover and Dave Koz"  talked about an artist who appeared on Desperate Housewives to promote her music, these guys actually did the same thing with Ghost Whisperer, but then proceeded to pull all their music off MySpace and their personal website and announce that they were going through a period of readjustment. So instead of having tens of thousands of potential customers going, "Oh, I loved that song! I want to download/buy it!", they got a big fat, "Sorry, you can't buy that awesome song (or anything else) by that band you noticed on that TV appearance last night."

It took them three years to get through that "readjustment" period. They didn't release their first album until 2009, long after pretty much everybody except me and what I can only assume are a scant few dedicated fans lost interest. I can't help but think this band could have been way more successful if they had handled the marketing of their music better around the time they made their TV appearance.

Still, regardless of my opinions of their self-promotional sensibilities, I do really like this band and this song continues to be one of my favorites.