One to watch for 2010 - Taylor Bright - Billboard Dance Chart at 29 with the MyMusicSuccess / Mike Rizzo Remixes http://tinyurl.com/yzr6zaq

Check out the latest music project from Switzerland's Max Makin - Elektrosphere http://tinyurl.com/yjwevub nujazz jazz new year 2010

One to watch in 2010 - Brigitte Meuwsen's new album "Pfff" pop meets dance http://bit.ly/7Anw0R pop dance music 2010

New album "Certitude" from US Jazz Diva due late January - one to watch for 2010 http://bit.ly/4PVrb6 jazz

The label to watch in 2010 - Platinum Trini Entertainment http://bit.ly/8a7b5y hiphop #r&b rnb music dancehall

Taylor Bright "Striped Socks" breaks Billboard Top 30 at 29 w/c 16th Jan 2010 with the MyMusicSuccess / Mike Rizzo remixes. http://bit.ly/78IhiO - its unstoppable!

MyMusicSuccess.Com Maximum PR - We get US independent Taylor Bright coverage on the Top 40 section of About.Com... http://bit.ly/7XCDkT

Reverbnation to discontinue Retail widgets from 1st Jan 2010 http://bit.ly/7Gccjf reverbnation music social network widget news bands

Jamie Sparks takes his R&B tracks to the Japanese Music Market! http://bit.ly/4Dhmsx

good post from Seth Godin, do something badly...http://ping.fm/NXbLR

One of the essentials for building music sales is having a fan list and regular band newsletters. Recommended - YMLP http://bit.ly/6tWHL9

great article on using facebook to promote your independent music. http://ping.fm/luWzu

Taylor Bright confirmed at 35 in New Year Billboard Chart, up another 4 places! http://ping.fm/Gh92M

Great news just in for Christmas: Taylor Bright Breaks Billboard Top 40 Club Chart @ 39 http://bit.ly/67LgAM billboard dance chart news

Texas USA: Jazz vocalist Dena Taylor releases details of her new CD, featuring Redd Volkaert on guitars http://bit.ly/5HLArD jazz news

2010 ECMA & Independent Music Award Nominee Jamie Sparks releases Christmas song: Canadian R&B, Juno nominee, a.. http://bit.ly/5czX55

Singer songwriter David Louthan Hits All The Right Notes With His ReverbNation Fans: Pennsylvanian independent .. http://bit.ly/5Q9D05

MyMusicSuccess.Com co-founder Simon Adams interviewed on Digital Music Trends Ep.27 http://bit.ly/jcWx0

Brigitte Meuwsen: Debut album "Pfff" released today at Amazon MP3, Recommended! http://bit.ly/5WHEdW musicmonday

Roger & The Rockets Release New Swedish Americana CD “Walking Band”

Independent Singer-Songwriter Roger Häggström and his band Roger & the Rockets release their second CD with a mix of Americana genres. The songs cover styles from acoustic bluegrass, country and blues all the way to rock. Strong up-tempo melodies and heartfelt lyrics blend this diverse set of songs together.

Walking band is the second CD of the band from Örnsköldsvik-Sweden. The recordings were made at Tonteknik Recording in the neighbouring town Umeå. Once again friends and fellow musicians gathered to record songs from their extensive catalogue. The new CD is the follow up to their debut album Unknown man which was recorded and released in 2008.

One charming addition to the new album is the vintage instruments that were used for the first time. Roger is an avid collector of vintage odd stringed instruments and gear. The album features an 1890 Viola da Terra, a 1920 Banjolin, a harp-guitar from around 1900 and ancient Vega tube amps from the 30’s to name a few. Most of the old instruments used were restored to a playable condition by Roger himself before the recordings.

The lyrics of the 13 original songs are all short and to the point and talk about loneliness, love, politics and everything in between. Some of the lyrics are deep, like the bluegrass tune "Crash & burn", and some, like the title track "Walking band", are meant for nothing but fun.

"Red robed Jesus" has a Christmas theme, albeit from a very twisted viewpoint. Roger has always had a thing for old time American music and shares the same roots as the folksingers of the 60's. Songs are written in almost all Americana styles, and over 50 songs were reviewed before the final track list for the album was chosen.

Sweden’s own Americana superstar, Roger Häggström, is back with his Sgt. Pepper opus, “Walking band” – Garageband

"A memorable and simple melody and a fresh topic for the lyrics is the basis for all my songs", says Roger. "The goal is to make songs that have a distinct profile, too much of the music I hear just doesn’t cut it if you strip away the production values. The songs I make must sound good with just a voice and a guitar", he says. Two of the songs are in fact stripped down to a voice and a strumming guitar, the old school protest song "One United State" and the very last tune on the CD, "Don't feel sorry".

For more information on Roger Häggström and his band Roger & the Rockets, visit

Band homepage: www.raketerna.se
MySpace: www.myspace.com/rogerrockets
Buy digital files online: www.rogertherockets.bandcamp.com
Buy CD: www.rogertherockets.bigcartel.com , www.cdbaby.com/cd/rogertherockets2

US Roots Rock And Reggae Singer Songwriter Scott Turchin Targets Japanese Music Market

Californian singer songwriter Scott Turchin becomes the latest artist to promote his music to the Japanese domestic market through MyMusicSuccess.Com, with the release of his new Japanese web and mobile presence at http://scottturchin.musicsugoi.jp

Scott is also featured on the home page of leading Japanese online music portal Topmusic.jp, and Japanese consumers can now purchase Scott's tracks directly from all the leading download stores including iTunes Japan, Amazon Japan, and leading Japanese music discovery service OnGen.

Simon Adams, Co-Founder of MyMusicSuccess.Com said today, "With our Music Sugoi japanese promotion service, we are able to help artists access the second biggest music market, and break down the language barrier that stops 89% of the domestic market in Japan from buying western artist tracks. We're glad to be able to help Scott market his fantastic catalogue of tracks to new markets"

About Scott Turchin

After a steady diet of radio folk (Weavers, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen), bluegrass, jazz, rock (Beatles, Who, Peter Gabriel, Elvis-both of 'em, Bowie, Seal, Sting/Police) and later reggae music (Marley, Tosh, Cliff, UB40, Israel Vibration), Award-Winning Singer-Songwriter SCOTT TURCHIN left his home in New York's Queens Borough on a "mission from God" to go to California and create a unique blend of Southern roots rock and reggae music, with a feel for African and other World music, and in the process winning Top 20 in the Unisong International Song Contest for Reggae, Song of the Year Nomination for Country, and numerous awards on musician review site GarageBand.com.

With and without his band, THE SCOTT TURCHIN BAND, he has played most of the venues in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas, including opening for Harry Dean Stanton at The Mint and running a Song Circle Showcase at coffeehouses, as well as acted in television, films, voiceover and stage. RIVER CAN CRY, his most ambitious album done with a single band and production team, received heavy rotation in Australian and English Internet Radio. He is proud to have 5 albums released for digital distribution, covering his three main genre areas of REGGAE, ALT-ROCK and ALT-COUNTRY/AMERICANA. His first CD, "SCOTT TURCHIN", a cool collection of "live" studio takes, also garnered CDBABY's "Editor's Choice" in both Reggae and Roots Rock!

Visit the Scott Turchin homepage at http://www.songmon.com

Independent Artists Kick Start Their Music Career For 2010 With The “Music Success Mindset” Program From MyMusicSuccess.Com

MyMusicSuccess, the leading promotion, publicity, and artist development company, has launched The "Music Success Mindset" a series of powerful online audio seminars offering personal coaching to independent artists worldwide covering topics such as setting goals for your music career, developing a never quit attitude, and techniques on maintaining the right mindset for success as an independent artist.

With less and less support from the major record labels, independent artists are faced with managing their own careers without the traditional artist development and support that a traditional record label deal previously provided. Record deals typically offered the support and advice from A&R executives, managers, coaches, experts in the fields of marketing and promotion and much more, but for the majority of the new generation of independent artists this has been out of reach until now.

Simon Adams, co-founder of MyMusicSuccess.Com has addressed this situation with the Music Success Mindset e-Seminar Program, and aims to help independent artists grow their music career by developing the right attitude and toolsets to succeed.

Commenting on the launch of the program, Simon says "We are right in the middle of a revolution for independent artists at the moment, but whilst living in a digital age brings many new opportunities, the key thing that is missing right now is personal support for artists. It's great to have new toolsets such as digital distribution, social networking and access to millions of potential fans, but if you don't combine these with the right mindset you are missing the biggest opportunity for success in the new music business."

Simon also goes onto say that all successful major artists have the same determined mindset to succeed, and independent artists can learn the same techniques, regardless of age, social status or background. "With the Music Success Mindset e-Seminar Program, we teach the artist how to set goals and reach them, we'll be offering advice on how to develop their personal confidence, overcome their fears, and how to connect with others on a human level, which is essential for building a dedicated fan base. In upcoming seminars we'll also be addressing things like how to develop sales relationships with your fans to boost income on MP3 downloads, how to run a profitable music business by increasing the revenue you make from digital distributors such as iTunes, and how to constantly take action that will accelerate your music career faster than you have experienced before"

To mark the launch of the new service and the the upcoming new year, MyMusicSuccess is offering a 50% discount on every artist who subscribes to the Music Success Mindset e-Seminar Program before 31st December 2009.

Subscribe to the Music Success Mindset using the following promotion code

mymusicsuccess2010

at the website http://www.mymusicsuccess.com and you'll not only gain access to all current and future seminars at half the usual price, but MyMusicSuccess will also give you access to their database of music industry contacts, access to their one on one coaching forums, and give you a massive 25% discount on selected publicity and promotion services.

Thinking Inside The Box

Often the most recognisable feature of a TV show, film or advert is the soundtrack. What first comes to mind with the UK bank, Lloyds TSB campaign? The campaign name, For the journey...? The banking features Lloyds offers? The animated characters? Or the staccato soprano soundtrack?

A 5 year old composition and 2 year old recording, the publicity that followed for Elena Kats-Chernin's piece after the 2003 launch of the Lloyds TSB campaign was highly successful. Eliza Aria from her ballet Wild Swans is the unforgettable soundtrack featured in the Lloyd's UK adverts; as soon as it hit the video site www.youtube.com it received over 250,000 views, and is still the first recognisable factor of the whole campaign. Further use of Eliza Aria in remixes has offered Kats-Chernin more exposure than ever before, transporting her ballet composition to dance genres and beyond.

Although a classical piece, mainstream pop artists have found similar success through their songs being synched to ad campaigns, film and television. Broadcast 2000 launched their professional music career following synch deals with E-on power and I-tunes. TV shows like Skins and the O.C. have taken a step to promote artists and bands within their shows through gig scenes and soundtrack competitions, cutting out the usual middle-men of record labels and sync music consultants.

In usual cases, however, the people to approach are record labels, music publishers or independent synch companies, asking them to promote your music for use in the media. Send your demo to any of the publishing companies, production houses, and synch consultants that you can find; even production music will gain you good contacts as a composer or session musician - many established artists are involved in media music as a side project and for extra income. Publishers and labels often have an internal department to promote their catalogues to TV agencies, production companies and broadcasters for use in the media. These synchronisation staff will overlap with A&R scouting roles, seeking out music that is suitable for such purposes.

This is a great way to get your music out there for publicity and promotion to an audience larger and more diverse audience than you will be able to reach through CD sales or live gigs.

Article credits:
Victoria Cran - MyMusicSuccess.Com Features Reporter

For more great articles on the new music industry visit the article section at our website.

In Memory Of Jim Rohn - You Were An Inspiration To Us All...

It is the philosophies and teachings of the great mentors like Jim Rohn that inspired me to start MyMusicSuccess.Com to help musicians access the same personal development techniques that have helped millions worldwide. It is uncanny that I launched the Music Suc...cess Mindset on the day one of the greatest inspirational speakers leaves us to continue his spiritual journey. RIP Jim Rohn, and thank you for helping us all to discover what "living your life" truly means.

The sad news that Jim Rohn passed away http://ping.fm/EGdnZ

Latest music success newsletter for independent artists online now at http://ymlp.com/zdfJWM independent music news midem artist indie

Independent Artists Kick Start Their Music Career For 2010 With The Music Success Mindset Program: Leading prom.. http://bit.ly/7lACiC

ABM has a show coming up on 12/04/2009 at 10:00 PM @ Area in WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA http://ping.fm/Yyspp - Wine Down!!

for those who dig the music of crazy genre-crossing artist SCOTT TURCHIN in REGGAE, ALT-COUNTRY/AMERICANA and ALT-ROCK! http://bit.ly/6pjaVT

Latest Article: Music for TV, Film, Advertising - Think Inside The Box - http://ping.fm/4o5kR

New website promises to promote your music on Twitter

In the ever expanding world of social media technology companies are always looking for the next bright idea that might start a revolution. Whilst twitter itself still looks for it's company direction there are lots of experimental developers out there building some great tools for the platform.

Most of the time, the simplest ideas are usually the best, and Tweetmysong.com is just that, a very good simple idea.

The idea is that you sign in to the site with your existing twitter username and password, upload a song with artwork, description etc, and choose whether to make it streaming or downloadable. Tweetmysong then automatically makes a web page with a player containing your tweeted song and posts the Tweetmysong URL , song title and message to your twitter page so listeners can hear it immediately.

Its a fantastic idea, and works - sometimes. As the service appears to be at a very early stage, when we tested the service it was hit and miss whether the system would upload your song correctly. We got a lot of 'Song Removed' messages after posting. We did get one or two tracks up for one of our artist Kandystand http://tweetmysong.com/7vi1bx but it took a few attempts to get the system to accept our song.

Be aware that whether or not your song is accepted, your post still goes out to twitter, so if you keep trying to upload after errors occur, you'll get multiple messages on your twitter account that drive followers to pages that do not contain your song, so this bug is annoying and makes a bit of a mess of your twitter account. There doesnt seem to be any FAQ, contact or feedback links to the developers so I couldn't report bugs either.

The Tweetmysong page also tracks visitors to your song and gives you statistics on how many people have listened to the song. The site boasts that you can promote your music to millions, and whilst in theory that is true, unless you use some clever keywords in your hash tags, the reality is that unless you are mainly promoting your music to your followers, not the millions on twitter.

As with all social media it's key to success is all about building a community rather than shouting at the masses, so Tweetmysong is not going to make you famous on twitter, but it is a great platform for delivering audio files via twitter. Once the bugs have been ironed out and the developers of Tweetmysong become a little less anonymous, this would be a great addition to an independent musician's arsenal of self promotion tools.

Check out the service for yourself at http://www.tweetmysong.com

The Latrells Latest Album 'Still Love You' Rides The Soul Train From San Francisco To Motown

The Latrells
Soul. Funk, Pop, San Francisco, USA

Artist Homepage: PSR Music Group MySpace Facebook
Artist Downloads: iTunes CDFreedom Rhapsody CDBaby
Sounds Like: The Temptations, The Jackson 5, Curtis Mayfield, A Tribe Called Quest, Sly & The Family Stone, Outkast, N.E.R.D., Dusty Springfield, The Kinks

Review by: Oliver Springate - MyMusicSuccess.Com

It’s all about one-piece acts, electronic beats and young talent in music these days, so when a large group with influences from the 60s comes onto the scene, is there going to be a success in the pipeline.

I’m talking about a band called The Latrells, a band hailing from the west coast of the US, and taking influences from all across the states, citing bands as diverse as Dusty Springfield and NERD as their influences.To give you a little bit on what they’re about, take the name of the record label, Pacific Soul Records. For me, that conjures up the sound of exactly what this band are about; chilled out music with a feel good vibe, performed by talented musicians with both voice and instruments.

They describe themselves as a “psychedelic soul band flavored with pop, hip-hop, R&B and rock” but what on earth does that mean. Put simply, the Latrells are one of a growing number of acts who can’t be put in any particular group, you’re just going to have to listen to them for yourself to find out exactly what they’re about.

The band’s new album, ‘Still Love You’, was released on the 20th October 2009, so now is as good a time as any to dive in and start relaxing to the sounds of this fantastic act. The album chronicles their rise from the roots to where they are now, and so naturally is going to include a couple of tracks that aren’t up to the standard that they are now producing at, but this is crucial to the band’s feel and making sure the listener can follow along on their journey.

You may be wondering where the name comes from. Well, take the members; Brockington Latrell, Carmine Latrell, Chemo Latrell, D.Dub Latrell, DSL "La Paz" Latrell, Xandine, Emmanuell Latrell and PJ Latrell. Although not related by birth, taking on the same pseudonym for their surnames shows the commitment and loyalty that’s contained within this band who treat themselves as a musical family, but who else can you remember who worked together as a musical family unit? The legendary Jackson Five are a hard act to follow, but there’s something special about family bands, who just seem to fit together and work perfectly. Sometimes it turns sour, but the tight knit group is bound to enjoy success being so close to each other.

The band have been widely praised for their live shows, and while being relatively unknown at present, they’ve got a substantial fan base of dedicated followers and the album is expected to do very well off the back of their live performances. The Latrells will be around to stay, and for good reason.

UK Rocker Mark Emmins wins a Gibson SG Guitar with MyMusicSuccess.Com

Independent UK rock musician Mark Emmins has been announced today as the winner of the MyMusicSuccess.Com Gibson Guitar competition, and wins himself a fabulous Heritage Cherry Red Gibson SG Standard Guitar.

MyMusicSuccess.Com has been running the competition on our website over the last 3 months, where all visitors who signed up for their free music marketing eBook had their name entered into the draw for the Guitar, which was kindly donated by Alex Becker at Gibson Guitars GMBH.

The excited winner Mark Emmins (pictured with his prize) told MyMusicSuccess.Com "I am so shocked! I have never won anything before in my life, and this is beyond my wildest dreams. This guitar will be cherished and will be my studio guitar, I'll be using it on all my recordings in the future. The Gibson SG is gorgeous, looks stunning and plays so nicely, I am absolutely overjoyed with it."

Mark, a former lead vocalist with UK Rock Band Blackreign, is currently concentrating on his independent solo career and was recently nominated for 2 awards in the Exposure Music Awards held in April 2009. Details of Mark's latest album 'Growing Old Disgracefully' and his extensive touring schedule can be found at http://www.markemmins.com

Simon Adams, Co-Founder of MyMusicSuccess.Com said that it was a great pleasure to be able to run the competition and help independent artists, "Thanks to the support of Gibson Guitars with this competition we've been able to let thousands of independent artists know about our free eBook download 'The Secrets Of Independent Music Success' which gives them a great grounding on how to navigate the new music business."

Taylor Bright Targets Billboard Dance Chart With "Striped Socks" Dance Remixes

US rock / pop sensation Taylor Bright started her drive towards the Billboard dance / club chart last Friday (9th October) with the release of a hot new set of remixes organised by MyMusicSuccess and produced and A&R'd by #1 US DJ Mike Rizzo.

The new remix package hit the dancefloors across the US over the weekend, and with included mixes from Mike Rizzo himself, alongside a cast of DJs that reads like the who's who of the global dance circuit 'Striped Socks' is set to make its mark on the Billboard Dance / Club chart in the coming weeks.

Striped Socks: Mike Rizzo Funk Generation Club Mix

Striped Socks: Albert Castillo Club Mix

Striped Socks: Mr Mig Club Mix

Striped Socks: Mr Mig Dub Mix

Striped Socks: Jamie J Sanchez Mixshow Edit

Striped Socks: Jamie J Sanchez Clubby Dub Mix

DJ Mozy's 'New Wave' Hits All The Right Notes

DJ Mozy’s latest trance album New Wave has just been released and is now available for download from iTunes, Juno, DJDownload and all good download sites.

After taking a short of break from the music industry, the South African dance artist DJ Mozy has come back in 2009 with a new album, which features amongst others, a 2009 version of the internet sensation Bliss. The track was first released in 2000 back in the days when mp3.com was for independent artists reaching number 4 in the overall download charts racking up 10s of 1000 of downloads.

The new version takes the retro elements of the original but with a new cutting edge sound with variations added along the way to keep things interesting.

Harel Seligmann (aka DJ Mozy) said: “Unlike most other trance albums there are no fillers and every track can hold its own. The album is mainly trance focussed with a few progressive tracks for good measure such as Colour and Biotronic.”

Some of the other tracks on the album include the hauntingly beautiful vocals of Natasha Saladino on the hard dance style trance track Ecstasy as well as the uplifting tracks Land of Dreams and Angels. The album consists of a series of peaks and troughs that keep one listening all the way through. Wide Awake in Dreamland is an especially strong track.

If you would like to keep up to date with his music or sample a few free tracks, you can find his music at www.djmozy.com

Singer Songwriter David Louthan invites you to his 'Musical Place'

David Louthan
Rock Folk Country Palmyra PA USA

Artist Homepage: MySpace Songcast Facebook Twitter
Artist Downloads: iTunes Amazon
Sounds Like: Tom petty, Led Zeppelin, Jim Hendrix, The Doors, Bob Dylan

Review by: Simon Adams - MyMusicSuccess.Com

Growing up in Darlington Pennsylvania, David Louthan started out developing his musical skills by picking up a guitar at age 13, and this self produced singer songwriter has never looked back.

It seems it took a while for the music production bug to bite fully, but in 2006 David set about stepping up his musical goals, and focused himself on seriously producing and recording the catalogue of songs he had started building up through his formative years.

David cites a diverse range of influences on his MySpace page, from the retro sounds of Tom petty, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors, to the slightly later sound of bands like The Red Hot Chili Peppers. When you listen to David's music the influences are evident, and he handles straight ahead acoustic guitar based tracks such as the Bob Dylanesque 'Just a Kid’ as skillfully as more psychedelic influenced tracks such as 'Misguided Fear'

The term singer songwriter is often used to define a genre of its own, but most artists who classify themselves as such generally want to impart the fact that the songs are telling the story.

Running through David's playlist of songs on his MySpace page, he tells a story of humble determination in pursuit of your dreams, with tracks such as 'Family' reminding the listener of the age old adage that if they follow their heart, they wont go far wrong in life.

Something I'm sure we can all relate to is the tale of growing up too quickly and succumbing to the pressures of adult life. Sometimes we'd all like a day off and spend the day in the proverbial candy shop, reliving those carefree days of our childhood. David's message in the song 'Just A Kid' reminds us that there's a higher power helping us out in life, which should give us permission that quitting our worries, and taking time out to get in touch with our childlike side wouldn't do us any harm now and again.

A similar theme runs through the laid back piano and acoustic guitar melodies of ‘There’s A Place’ which arouses a very 60’s influenced feeling, encouraging us to find that part of our psyche that gives us the freedom and serenity to create and visualize our dreams. Going by the creativity contained in his catalogue of songs, I’d say that in his music David Louthan has definitely found ‘his place’.

Currently in the studio working on new songs, (hopefully for his debut album), David has put some great effort into creating an online musical presence through his social networks.

Connect with David Louthan through his impressively designed MySpace page, where you can keep up to date with all his latest news and future releases.

Watunes launches new social music site Sept 28th , and helps MyMusicSuccess artist Kandystand sell their ringtones.

WaTunes New Experience is coming September 28th, 2009, and will be launching with a great new set of features for the independent musician to put into their toolbox, along with a new music social network with some great interactive features. Here's what Watunes CEO Kevin Rivers told MyMusicSuccess about the new service this week...

For the past couple of weeks, I've been dishing out weekly teasers of what is coming with WaTunes New Experience. So far you guys have seen the public profile pages and the killer new video service WaTV. This week, I will introduce to you guys the new WaTunes Mobile Store, a new development in partnership with Thumbplay, a leading digital mobile music service provider. With the WaTunes Mobile Store, you'll be able to search, listen, and download your favorite ringtones, graphics, wallpaper, and games right into your phone. Working with carriers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Celluarsouth, now you can share music on a whole new playing field. Check out the latest 'Blueprint 3' by Jay-Z now being available as a downloadable ringtone on WaTunes.

Jay-Z - Blueprint 3 - On to the Next One:



So what does this have to do with the indie artists that uses WaTunes for digital distribution?

A lot. Through Thumbplay's OPEN Platform, we've enabled you to directly deal with Thumbplay to easily convert your songs into ringtones and making them instantly available on Thumbplay and the WaTunes Mobile Store. WaTunes Artist Kandystand quickly took advantage of Thumbplay and has their latest release "Everybody" now available as a ringtone on the WaTunes Mobile Store.

Kandystand - Everybody (The Electro Remixes):



These are several great opportunities that we will be providing with New Experience. On a separate note, this Tuesday, the WaTunes current site will be fully shutdown until September 28th to begin our transition into WaTunes New Experience. I will have a basic simple placeholder in place for the site updates for contacts, blogs, etc. Please know that everything will be fully updated once we launch WaTunes New Experience.

Bookmark http://www.watunes.com and stay tuned for more details of the launch!

Dancehall / Hip Hop artist ABM releases video for new single 'Wine Down'

Platinum Trini Entertainment dancehall artist ABM releases his video for his new single 'Wine Down' today, and users can get their first view of this great track at YouTube, DJBuzzTV, and many other video sites across the internet.

New study shares best practice of using the internet to release your music to the masses.

We befriended dutch communication student Bas Grasmayer this week on twitter after discovering his new study on 5 recent Web 2.0 music releases.

In his study he analyses the following 5 releases

• Radiohead’s album “In Rainbows”;
• Nine Inch Nails’ albums “Ghost I-IV”;
• Groove Armada’s EP “Drop the Tough”;
• Dangermouse and Sparklehorse’ “Dark Night Of The Soul”;
• Mos Def’s album “The Ecstatic”.

The study looks at common successes between the releases, what worked, what didn't and why. Although this is an academic study it proves interesting reading for independent artists looking to get inspiration and new ideas for their music releases.

Bas says there is more to come, but the first release of his study can be downloaded here

You can also follow Bas' blog at http://www.basbasbas.com/blog/

MyMusicSuccess artist Kandystand continues to climb the dance charts

MyMusicSuccess artist Kandystand continue to ascend the West Coast Dance Chart, this week up to #34!

Open Your Heart is an electro tinged remix of the 80's Madonna classic, and is also receiving airplay in the US, Europe, and Australia. It is also featured on the Xltrax Radio network through the MyMusicSuccess XLRadioPromotion service.

Kandystand - OYH (Open Your Heart) is available for download at all online digital retailers or get your copy here

Soundworks Pool Top 50 Chart
compiled 3 September 2009


TC LC WoC
1 2 22 David Guetta ft. Kelly Roland * When Love Takes Over *Astralwerks
2 1 16 Pussycat Dolls * Hush Hush, Hush Hush Remix * Interscope
3 4 10 Beyonce * Sweetdreams Remix * Columbia
4 10 10 Ida Corr * Ride My Tempo Remix * Ultra
5 6 10 La Roux * Bulletproof * Cherry Tree
6 7 10 Pink * Funhouse * LaFace
7 26 4 Madonna * Celebration * Warner Bros
8 3 16 Katy Perry * Waking Up In Vegas * Capitol
9 16 10 Naturi Naughton * Fame 09 * Lakeshore
10 NEW U2 * I'll Go Crazy, If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight * Island
11 12 20 Flo Rida * Sugar Disco Fries Remix * Atlantic
12 18 4 Black Eyed Peas * I've Got A Feeling * Interscope
13 15 10 Bill Bennett ft. Abigail * Forever Young * Big Rhythm
14 22 10 Whitney Houston * I Didn't Know My Own Strength Rmx*Arista
15 9 16 Chrisette Michele * Epiphany (I'm Leaving) * Def Jam
16 17 10 Pet Shop Boys * Did You See Me/Up & Down * EMI
17 20 10 Bananarama * Love Comes * Fascination
18 NEW Lady Gaga * Papaarazzi Remix * Interscope
19 8 18 Kaci Battaglia * Crazy Possessive Remixes * Curb
20 21 20 Sharam ft. Kid Cudi * She Came Along * Ultra
21 11 16 Lasgo * Gone * Robbins
22 14 16 Miami Starfish ft. Jermaine * Clothes Off! *Groove Factory
23 30 6 Richard Vission & Static Revengers ft. Luciana * I LIke That '09 * Meterhead
24 27 6 Cascada * Evacuate The Dancefloor * Robbins
25 44 6 Shakira * She Wolf * Sony
26 NEW Mariah Carey * Obsessed Remixes * Def Jam
27 50 4 Vanessa Williams * The Real Thing * Concord
28 NEW Pepper Mashay * Freeway Of Love * Capp Records
29 38 6 Alyson * Sticky Sticky * PM Media
30 39 6 Jenn Cuneta * I Want That Man * Bill Friar Ent
31 34 16 Mike Bordes ft. Angela S. * Don't Know What U Got * CDM
32 43 4 Carmen Reece * Right Here * Real MF
33 35 6 Tiga * Beep Beep * Turbo
34 37 6 Kandystand * Open Your Heart * Team Hayward
35 NEW Jordan Sparks * Battlefield * Universal
36 41 4 Little Boots * New In Town * Elektra
37 32 10 Marcie ft. Mike Rizzo * Midnight * EsNtion
38 NEW Lolene * Sexy People * Capitol
39 45 4 Jesse Saunders * Weekend * Broken
40 47 4 Anjulie * Love Songs * Concord
41 48 6 DJG Project * If I Could Be You * Amathus Music
42 NEW Paradiso Girls * Patron Tequila Remixes * Interscope
43 NEW Loveshy ft. Elesha * The Boy Is Mine * Next Plateau
44 40 18 Barton * Valentine * Netspheres
45 49 4 Jessie James * Wanted Wanted * Mercury
46 NEW Sarah McLeod * Tell Your Story Walkin' * Next Plateau
47 NEW LeToya * She Ain't Got... * Capitol
48 NEW Sarah Spiegel * I Dreamed A Dream * Broken
49 NEW Annick * Wonder * ISV
50 NEW Various * Brazilian Cafe * Putumayo

PICKS:

Nelly Furtado * Manos Al Aire * Interscope
Italo Brothers * So Small * Robbins
Whitney Houston * Million Dollar Bill * Arista
Sliimy * Wake Up * Perezilicious
Fey * Lentamente * Rey Music
Mia J * Headlights * Robbins
Morgan Page * Fight For You * Nettwerk
Sean Kingston ft. Pitbull * Fire Burning Remix * Atlantic

R&B Pop Artist J-Swagg Review

J-Swagg
R&B Pop, Los Angeles, USA

Artist Homepage: Reverbnation MySpace Jswagg Japan
Artist Downloads: Napster Amazon
Label: Platinum Trini Entertainment / Universal Music
Sounds Like: Fabolous, Akon, TI, Jay-Z, Pharrel

Review by: Oliver Springate - MyMusicSuccess.Com

J Swagg is the latest artist to be signed onto the Platinum T Entertainment roster, and is showing a lot of potential to blow big time in the near future, and already has a fan base supporting him from America, Europe and Asia. He was born in the Philippines, has some Spanish Ancestry, and moved to California when he was 12, where he has grown up from there onwards.

This slightly odd mix of cultural influences is said to have rubbed off on J Swagg’s music, bringing together a sound which is similar to many of today’s mainstream hip hop artists, but remains unique. With the sheer number of artists around today, it would be impossible to have a totally unique style, and J Swagg has managed to make sure that the one’s he sounds similar to are the ones who are dropping the big tunes.

He lists his main influences as TI, Jay-Z and Pharrel, and that’s not a bad group to have influencing you when you’re trying to succeed in hip hop, and with his own style thrown into the mix, you’ve got an artist with real potential.

J Swagg is showing the flickers of success that all those who have gone before him had in their early days. In fact, what J Swagg is putting out is probably way ahead of what his predecessors were doing at the same stage in their careers.

With music making a return to the focus on revenues from live shows, J Swagg is also positioning himself perfectly on this front. On stage he really comes alive, interacting with his fans and putting on a great show.

His songs so far include the singles Your Body and The Life, both of which are chilled songs with a slight electro feel, and give a sound similar to artists like Fabolous and Akon. They’re definitely worth a listen, and his upcoming highly anticipated album ‘The Warm Up’ is set to be a big one when it comes out. J Swagg is definitely going to be one of the artists who we’re hearing a lot about over the next year.

Hip Hop / Dancehall artist ABM starts Japanese web promotion with MyMusicSuccess

ABM

Hip Hop Dancehall Reggae, Los Angeles, USA

Artist Homepage: Reverbnation MySpace ABM Japan
Artist Downloads: iTunes Amazon
Label: Platinum Trini Entertainment / Universal Music
Sounds Like: Sean Paul, Bob Marley, Usher

Review by: Oliver Springate - MyMusicSuccess.Com

Remember the stir that Sean Paul created a few years back? Reggae music had gone silent for a few years, until the young Jamaican brought it slamming back onto the scene with a dance twist, and now after another few quiet years, there are murmurings of a new talent emerging on the popular Reggae scene.

Trinidadian artist ABM, signed to Platinum Trini Entertainment, and distributed through Universal Music, is storming into the game with his new single Wine Down. I really can’t get enough of this song, it’s a real feel-good song, perfect for the clubs and dancefloors, and brings through the feel of his laid back upbringing in the sunny Caribbean.

The percussion based beat is perfect for the song, and the female voice that complements the chorus is what first made me think of Sean Paul, being reminiscent of the great collaboration he did with Blu Cantrell. And that goes to show just what potential ABM has, those two were already established artists, whereas ABM is just starting out and he’s already producing killer tunes.

I’ve got to be honest, his other songs aren’t as punchy as wine down, and the beats aren’t the sort of things you’d hear at parties, but that’s not to say they’re bad by a long stretch. Wine Down is very a fusion of old style reggae music and the modern R&B music that ABM is surrounded by, whereas his other songs are more laid back reggae, clearly showing influence by artists like Bob Marley.

He also has a couple of chilled tracks, such as Missing You, which combines his style with that of artists such as Usher or Jaheim, to make a cool song with a strong meaning, offering us an insight into the man behind ABM.

Unlike the majority of other artists, ABM doesn’t just excel in the studio. Growing up he was extremely successful at basketball, football and athletics, and achieved a scholarship to Grambling State University, where a few years later he graduated with an engineering degree, making him truly multi-talented. Few people can profess to have musical, sporting and academic success.

And it gets even more unbelievable. ABM claims that he’s not in music for a career, and is making songs for himself and not for the charts. If that’s true, he’s got a great taste in music! ABM says that he has procrastinated about following his passion for music for too long, so lets just hope he doesn’t change his mind and go back to the day job, as this is too good to miss.

Wine Down is without a doubt one of the best songs I’ve heard this year, which I still can’t quite believe coming from such a new artist. I can barely imagine what we have in store from ABM over the coming years.

September Special: Music PR Publicity Blast for Just 29.00 Euros!

September is upon us and the dark days of the Fall are drawing in. So what better way to brighten up the day than MyMusicSuccess launching the "September Special".

Every month over the Fall season we'll be running a discount on one of our PR products, and we kick off in September with our One Shot Music Publicity Blast.

If you're looking to put out news of your latest music release or event, Indie One Shot Publicity gets your band news blasted out to music fans and industry professionals on the web.

You'll get a professional press release written and distributed to leading music industry newswires and music news websites. We'll also put your news into our leading music blog and newsletter.

Indie One Shot Publicity Gets You:

* Professional press release written by our industry journalists
* Your Press release fed to 35 music industry newswires and search engine news networks
* Your music news published on the MyMusicSuccess blog network
* Your music news featured in our subscriber newsletter with 'Recommended Artist' advertisement
* Your music news fed into our twitter music industry tagged news feeds

News Feed Coverage

* 35 leading major music industry newswires
* 40,000 RSS feeds, javascript feeds & html feeds on 3rd party websites.
* •Google Web Gadget
* •Opt-in daily mailing lists.
* •Google News
* •Google Search
* •Yahoo Search
* •MSN Search
* •Live Search
* •AOL Search
* •AltaVista Search
* •AllTheWeb Search
* •Netscape Search
* •Accoona Search
* Twitter
* Blogger
* Wordpress
* •& many many more

Head on over to http://www.mymusicsuccess.com to book your September Special now. Offer expires midnight CET 30th September 2009.

Sell digital band assets on your website with a new shop widget from Kiqlo.com

The team at MyMusicSuccess came across a new site this week that could prove very useful for the independent musician who wants to sell everything from MP3's to Screensavers, Band Desktops and other digital band merchandise directly from their website.

Kiqlo.Com is developing a portable 'Shop Widget' that you can integrate onto any website or social networking page that accepts widget code.

Currently the widget cannot be used with MySpace as MySpace block any flash widget that links to an external page, however the owner and developer of Kiqlo Rosario Iannella told me that they have plans to develop a MySpace compatible shop within the next couple of weeks.

Kiqlo is a completely free service, and takes no cut from your sales. The platform has been in development now for around a year, however they already have over 1000 vendors selling over 11,000 items through the stores every day.

The service uses the PayPal payment engine, so its very simple to recieve payments by setting up an account with PayPal and linking it with your Kiqlo shop by just entering your PayPal ID into the Kiqlo system.

Although you are able to sell MP3's through the shop with the Kiqlo MP3 playlist shop, you can also earn extra revenue by creating and selling downloadable wallpapers, exclusive backstage photosets, your bands biography in an ebook, literally any digital asset you want to create to create a one stop portable shop for all your bands digital assets.

Customer service is second to none. When we signed up to the service at MyMusicSuccess, we couldnt sign in as we had just upgraded our FireFox browser to the latest version. I emailed Kiqlo and within an hour the problem had been fixed and I was up and running. Rosario Iannela the creator, owner and developer of Kiqlo is fully commited to his project, and similar helpful experiences are documented in the companies forums which is always encouraging to see.

If you are looking for a way to raise money for your band, selling digital assets from your band is a great way to offer your fans a low cost investment into your brand, and using Kiqlo to sell these items directly from your web pages and social networks is a no brainer.

Head over to http://www.kiqlo.com to sign up for your free account and start building your digital asset shop today!

Taylor Bright Takes US Teen Pop To Japan, And Starts Fall Campaign On XLTrax Radio

Philadelphia's latest teen pop rock sensation Taylor J Bright relaunched her Japanese website to support the ongoing promotion of her current iTunes hit single 'Striped Socks'.

Taylor is a songwriter, singer and actress who began her career on the stage. She has numerous professional theater credits including the 30th Anniversary National Tour of the Broadway hit Annie, Annie Warbucks, Carousel and 13 The Musical. Taylor has also appeared in several commercials and print advetising campaigns.

Taylor's music is well suited to the Japanese market, with a major part of the Japanese domestic music audience consisting of teenage demographics, this audience is also very technologically aware, and with Taylor's new Japanese web and mobile prescence Japanese fans will be able to visit her site, preview tracks and purchase MP3's directly from their mobile handsets, by far the most popular method of consuming digital music in Japan.

Taylor is making headway with her music career on an independent basis, an unusual story of success in a market dominated by major recording contracts and long standing teen brands like Disney, but her music stands up against her peers, and would fit easily into the iPod playlists of fans of Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers and other similar pop rock glitterati.

With producer Kenny Lamb ('N Sync, Building 429) and engineer Chris Rowe (Taylor Swift, Jewel) on board her team, the forthcoming debut CD thats in production right now is sure to make an impression upon its release.

Taylor is about to start her fall radio campaign for 'Striped Socks' with MyMusicSuccess partner and leading online radio network Xltrax. She is currently in the studio recording an exclusive interview with the station, and you'll be able to hear the interview, alongside Taylors hit single, playing out wordlwide on the XlTrax network over the next few months.

To get your copy of Taylor Bright's new single 'Striped Socks' and see her brand new video check out the following websites.

http://taylorbright.musicsugoi.jp
http://www.taylorbright.com/
http://www.myspace.com/taylorjbright

Marketing Your Music – Why Pay As You Go Music Promotion Makes Sense For Independent Artists And Labels…

One of the biggest challenges for independent artists is getting their music marketed effectively on ever tightening budgets.

If you’re an independent artist without a record company helping you market your music, you have to ask yourself “what can I achieve on my own, and where are my skill gaps where I need some assistance to get the word out?”

Some of the biggest mistakes that many artists make when they have completed their latest musical masterpiece is to try to target a mass market by throwing out twitter shouts, emails and anything they can lay there hands on to whoever might listen.

Whilst this might initially get eyes on your site, nearly 80% of your effort will be wasted on targeting people who have no interest in your music. It’s not going to grow your audience, its definitely not going to increase sales or downloads and will leave you frustrated with your results.

It’s not enough to put up a widget on your website with a buy button and hope people will come by and purchase your track. It’s a proven fact that it will take 6 exposures to a given product before someone will even consider reaching for their credit card and buying something - your music is no different.

Think about it. listeners to your music will have needed to have heard of your music at least 6 times before from trusted sources, whether they’ve seen it in the music news, read a review, heard it on an online radio station, seen an ad, or perhaps had it recommended by a friend.

You need to treat your music in the same way as any other business treats the product they wish to sell. And that means researching who your target market is, where they hang out, what they read, what and who they respect. That’s specialist knowledge that you definitely need help with.

Of course when record companies were doing all of this work for artists, they hired in a PR and Promotion agency to make sense of the marketing of the artist’s music, and deducted the costs from the artists advance.

As we all know that model is no longer viable for most unsigned independent artists. Hiring in a PR or Promotion agency that uses the retainer fee business model is not within the reach of independent artists that need to pay for their promotion themselves.

This is why MyMusicSuccess runs on the Pay As You Go promotion business model.

We saw that a lot of independent bands could not access good PR without being asked to pay thousands up front with little real promise in return.

We’ve changed the whole ethos and thinking on how PR and Promotion should be delivered for unsigned independent artists and labels.

We see ourselves as part of the artists' team, however we believe that the artist should only pay for the work they need doing , not a retainer. So we're only here when you need the services delivered, and with Pay As You Go PR & Promotion, you buy only the services you need when you need them. It's becoming a very cost effective way of working in the current economy and is getting amazing results for our artists.

Hire in the right help to market your music, treat your music as a business and the customers will come your way.

6 Years On: The State Of Music Digital Distribution

Over the last few months we’ve been helping a number of our artists streamline their digital distribution strategies to help maximise their income from the sale of their MP3 downloads. It’s been an educational experience, and we’re coming out the other end with an interesting overview of the digital distribution landscape.

In the last 5-6 years we’ve seen music aggregation platforms and digital distribution expand in an extremely fast way, and musicians have an incredibly vast array of options to sell their music online.

As we’ve said many times on this blog, in the current music marketplace YOU are the record company, which means treating your music as a business, and choosing the right business partners to suit your style of working.

Back in the early days of digital distribution, there weren’t many choices if you wanted to sell music online via the large download stores. CDBaby were one of the first operators to deliver your tracks to iTunes and Amazon and increased their reach to many other stores over time. Tunecore also led the way in the early days with a quick and easy way to get your music into a similar playlist of online shops.

Now every music site and their proverbial dog are delivering to iTunes, Amazon and many more stores besides. Social media platform Watunes even delivers your tracks to the iTunes store for free, so how do you decide where to place your valuable catalogue of music?

One of the key questions you need to ask yourself before jumping into the first digital distribution partner agreement you come across is:

Who is the right partner to sell my music on behalf of my music business?

For new artists that are just starting out, you’ll have the luxury of surveying and testing out all the distribution services out there, both old and new.

For artists that started delivering their music to digital stores a few years ago you may be looking to streamline your distribution instead of having a large array of services delivering small amounts to you each month and taking their separate fees from this.

In our recent project streamlining the music inventory of one of our artists, we found out an awful lot about the current state of digital music aggregators, and the biggest issues we experienced with many of the companies involved was simply down to the way they deal with their customers.

During the project we encountered some surprising experiences with the various digital delivery services customer service departments, yours may be different of course, but for the benefit of those musicians that are looking to streamline their catalogue delivery we though we’d share our experiences with you.

We were given a brief by our client that they wanted to deliver all of their music to iTunes, Amazon and the other download stores through one cost effective source, as they were fed up receiving reports from several different companies each month, and also having to spend several separate fees to put up their album with each company when they released a new single or album.

The client had been making music for just over 5 years and over that time had delivered their music to download stores through CDBaby, TuneCore, and European distributors FEIYR.Com

We looked at the amount of money the client was spending to deliver their music to all of these services. CDBaby was still charging $35 per album, although this does get your CD on their store if you have a physical release, (albeit at a manufacturing and shipping cost to yourself), Tunecore were charging $19.95 per album per year for digital delivery, and FEIYR although a specialist dance distributor was costing around $20 per release if you chose all their stores.

We’ve been finding out a lot about the new digital delivery model at Watunes.Com who deliver tracks to the iTunes store for free. Their VIP service charges just $29.95 per year and covers all releases in that year, plus we received answers to our questions the same day when we contacted them.

So we chose Watunes as the sole provider for our client’s music, as we also had some advance information given to us about the imminent release of their social music platform with some groundbreaking new services for independent artists that will enable them to make some real cash from their music.

When we looked at the client’s portfolio on iTunes, it was evident that there were 3 to 4 different versions of each of their releases all at different prices in the iTunes store because of the different delivery platforms they were using. It’s confusing to the customer and makes the store look unprofessional so we set about putting that straight.

The first port of call was to get takedowns carried out at the client’s current distribution channels in order for us to then channel all their releases through Watunes.

Takedowns are basically requests to an aggregator asking them to stop selling your music at a particular store, and doing this really showed the poor level of customer care given by some of the more established digital distributors.

We first contacted CDBaby and asked for our clients releases to be pulled from all the digital stores. We got a response that asked us to confirm this, which we did, and… nothing. So we contacted them again…. Nothing... We are still waiting for communication from them, and by the looks of their forums and twitter pages so are many others.

It appears that CDBaby have now finally taken down after many weeks the requested tracks, but since that first email they haven’t responded to either our client or us, and our client continues to get no response from their helpline or email on this and other accounting issues. Not a recipe for success after their recent takeover by Discmakers.

Next stop Tunecore, once again contacting them proved very difficult. Once we did get a response, they did eventually remove the tracks, but it took a while for them to engage in communication with us. Why is it so difficult to look after your customers and afford them a timely response…

Lastly we contacted FEIYR.Com the German based dance distributor, who responded quickly, but stated that to remove tracks from their stores would cost 29.99 Euros per release. With 10 releases our client would have to pay nearly 300 Euros to have their tracks removed.

This indeed was stated in the terms and conditions small print of FEIYR.Com when our client signed up so there was little we could do to avoid the charges, but this really does drive home the message that you need to read the terms and conditions of your contracts with your digital distributor carefully. Don’t just click I AGREE, read the terms and conditions fully. It will save you money in the long term

We asked Watunes what would happen if in the future we decided to pull our tracks from the online stores. Their CEO Kevin Rivers replied within hours to our email saying that they don’t charge for takedowns, and if artists wished to move from Watunes in the future, they can only wish them good luck and make sure they attend to their request as soon as possible.

They also advised us that Apple take their artist down within 3 days if they receive a takedown request. All the other distributors told us it would take us at least a month for takedowns.

Watunes delivered our clients tracks very quickly and smoothly to the iTunes, Amazon and other download stores, and when we asked them to update a tricky publishing credit directly with iTunes, they responded to us within hours and had the change implemented within a few days. Our client was very happy with their customer service, and it seems we have connected them to a business partner that is committed to serving customers well.

All in all the experience left us wondering why companies such as CDBaby and Tunecore, that have built up a reputation as the leaders in their field pay such little respect to their customers, and in many cases just ignore them completely. Reading through various forums and twitter feeds (including the companies official forums and blogs) showed an enormous amount of other musicians experiencing the same frustrations.

In the current economic climate the only successful way to build your business is to engage with customers and look after them. Maybe its arrogance, maybe it’s just ever tightening margins. We think it’s just the personality of the company as a whole.

So what did we learn from our experiences that would offer good advice to artists looking for the best deal for distributing there music in the new digital music market?

Before joining a digital aggregator, make sure you do your homework and research the company well. Read as many experiences from other users as you can, ask other musicians their experiences, and check out what others are saying about the company on Twitter and other social networks.

Above all read the terms and conditions very carefully, and before you place your valuable music assets with a distributor, build up a relationship with them, get to know the company values and ethos.

Drop the CEO a line to see if they respond, speak to the staff via email or phone and see how they treat you. You should expect a full response to any questions you have within 24 hours, that’s not just courteous, its good business practice.

Really take some time to grill your business partner thoroughly about possible charges and get to know the company before you decide to go into partnership with them.

Choose your digital distribution business partner well, and you’ll enjoy a long and fruitful relationship with them for many years to come…

Jazz Diva Dena Taylor - Determined Vocalist Produces Masterpiece In The Face Of Adversity

Dena Taylor: Round Midnight CD Review

Jazz, Texas, USA

Artist Homepage: Reverbnation MySpace Facebook
Artist Downloads: iTunes Amazon CDBaby
Sounds Like: Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Cole Porter

Review by: Tara Isabella Burton - MyMusicSuccess.Com

Smoky, sexy, soft - the velvety voice of Dena Taylor dominates not just a corner of the room but indeed the entire wall of sound created by the "on" button of the stereo.

The jazz-tinged piano-ballads featured on Round Midnight, a selection from Taylor's latest album, combine a retro melancholy reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holliday with a self-knowing wink and a nod - in all the tracks, particularly "Let's Face the Music and Dance"

it is clear that Taylor combines the power and passion of her deeper melodies - such as "Round Midnight," arguably the sample's best song - with a hip, even modern take on a classic Cole-Porter sound: the happening drumbeat of "Let's Face the Music..." or the slight world-music-sound of "That Old Black Magic" are but two examples of the edge that Taylor brings to the "standard" sound.

But it is Taylor's voice that dominates the sound most. A gorgeous, rich mahogany voice, it is showcased prominently on the album - perhaps too much so, the production can times can feel excessively focused on the vocals, which echo just a nanosecond longer than they need to - and with good reason. Taylor's talent is the real deal - an instrument as powerful as a jazz piano or saxophone in evoking the mournful yet sassy strains of jazz and blues so central to Round Midnight.

Taylor's road to success has been hard-won, even inspirational. After a difficult and traumatic childhood, Taylor spent twelve years abroad in the military, combining her years of service with a series of low-profile concert and event gigs, ultimately choosing marriage over her first record contract - a choice Taylor would later discover led to an unhappy marriage and an unfair postponement of her dreams. Upon leaving the military, Taylor found herself in a tragic car accident that left her with severe brain damage - it took her a full two years for Taylor to regain her powers of speech and motion.

Today, Taylor is following her dream by giving "voices to the voiceless" - a power she was once herself denied and lends her personal support to a number of good causes that support others who have endured adversity.

It is a testament to Taylor's talent, however, that her sound never seems "preachy." Rather, the adversity Taylor has faced lends her voice a hard, knowing edge - like that of a Gladys Knight at her prime- that gives her music a ripened maturity so many pop stars lack.

That she is able to combine this maturity with the infectious and youthful rhythm of songs like "That Old Black Magic" is further proof of her skill as both a performer and a musician.