Lyric websites have been a staple of music-related search results since the start of the millenium, but the format of presenting lyrics on many of these sites has remained mainly the same since their inception: plain text with no supplementary information or interactivity. Perhaps the most notable innovator in the genre is Genius — formerly known as Rap Genius, the site’s sidebar annotations now extend to multiple genres and even outside the music sphere to news and entertainment, and infrastructure to help “annotate any page on the Internet” is currently in beta. Google recently began showing lyrics in their search result pages as part of their Knowledge Graph, but beyond requiring a click through to the song available for purchase in their Google Play store for access to the full lyrics, their method of displaying lyrics is no more advanced. Even despite sidebar-comment approaches similar to Genius in other industries, including notes on content platform Medium and annotations on Quartz articles, most lyrics-dedicated sites have been stagnant and unimaginative.

Continue reading “Using Livefyre Sidenotes to make lyrics more interactive”

As the music industry wakes up from its holiday slumber and begins the new year, attention shifts to developing new artists whose careers are beginning to build. Below are forty hand-picked artists of varying genres and current levels of success. Some are completely independent, while others have already topped charts. Regardless, all of them show potential to be even bigger names, particularly in America, in the coming year. Listen to the artists through this SoundCloud playlist, and check back later in the year to see how these predictions turned out. Continue reading “Class Of 2015: 40 promising artists to watch this year”

As the largest part of a series of updates to multiple digital platforms to help promote the band’s independently-released sophomore album, The Bridge, I redesigned the WordPress website for Graffiti6’s official website. The site is responsive for both tablet and mobile displays and focuses on Graffiti6’s discography, with custom post types used to build a discography of music releases and a lyrics section. The two sections are connected to link each song on a release to its lyrics, and in order to provide interactivity, I used Livefyre’s Sidenotes plugin to allow fans to share and comment on their favorite lyrics. (Read more on my implementation of Livefyre Sidenotes here.)

While working with Graffiti6’s TommyD to provide updates across digital platforms to help promote the band’s independently-released sophomore album, The Bridge, I had the opportunity to create a lyric video for the album’s second single and title track, “The Bridge.” Inspired by the band’s kaleidoscopic style, both graphically and musically, I created the lyric video in Adobe After Effects, using preset effects to allow the song’s lyrics to pop out from swirling graphic background imagery.

As part of a website redesign to market Graffiti6’s independently-released sophomore album, The Bridge, I created social media graphics to help promote the album release, as well as of that of single “U Got The Sunshine,” which was promoted in international markets. These graphics were posted as cover photos on the band’s Twitter and Facebook pages and as banners on the existing Graffiti6 website in the interim while the redesign was being completed. On Facebook and the website, they were accompanied by smartURL links to help track clicks and monetize purchases.