As Beck would say ‘Wow‘, for once an initiative to get your music noticed that doesn’t require you to essentially promote a third party by pimping out all your friends and family via social media. This is a competition that’s not about FACT Mag, Vinyl Factory or even their supporting crowdfunding site BORN.com, in fact (no pun intended) it’s not really a competition at all as you don’t even have to put forward your own music. It is simply an opportunity to see deserving new music pressed to vinyl, for FREE.
Instinctively, especially if you’re British, you’re probably wondering what’s the catch. Well as far as we can see this isn’t one, this is no – “we would like to deposit millions of dollars in you bank account for no apparent reason”, random email equivalent, it would appear, according to their own words, as a legitimate scheme to get more deserving music pressed to vinyl…
“The idea behind the project is simple. It’s easier than ever for artists to bring their music to potential fans, but for many – even acts who have built up big fan bases – releasing on vinyl can still be daunting prospect. The high cost and the risk of delays can be off-putting, and even if there’s a chance of making the money back, it can still be an unaffordable commitment for young artists or labels. So that’s why we’ve launched VF Selects – because there’s more great music out there than ever that deserves to be on vinyl, and we want to make that happen with as little risk to artists as possible. If we think you’ve got the sound and the audience to sell out a run of records, then we can try to make that happen.”
However, and we’re not trying to be pessimistic naysayers here, it will be interesting to see how many artists or labels with minimal to no fan bases get pressed to vinyl relative to those with a stronger more active social media presence. Hopefully the founders behind this exciting new project will remain true to their initial ethos and have the confidence to press great new music even when the artist’s profile is virtually non-existant. Naturally financial considerations will play a factor in what gets pressed and what does not, and we’re not suggesting that they should just press any old thing that has no intrinsic commercial value. However what defines commercial value can often get skewed by the current status quo and therefore we’re hoping that VF Selects doesn’t allow cautious pragmatism to overly stifle potential thrilling discovery.
To find out more and submit your’s, or someone else’s music hit the following link: [VF Selects]