Who Sells Inspirational Music?

Inspirational music, at this time, is clearly an unclaimed category. That’s why it is such an exciting business venture. Its potential customers are listed in the millions at a time when the whole concept of the need for Inspiration around the world is mighty. There are a growing handful of players in the category.

The following websites are the top seeds on Google search engines for “Inspirational Music” and “Christian Music”.

Inspirationline.com This site is the #1 site on Google for Inspirational Music and gives away free digital downloads, but all the songs are basically rip-offs of known artists.

eztracks.com Gives away some rip-offs of known artists and also sells them as Digital Down Loads (DDLs) through i-Tunes. Both of these sites demand email info before doing anything.

Inspirationalldsmusic.com This is an LDS (Mormon) site. It is handled well, but only sells LDS music (37 Artists). Does not sell DDLs or Hard Goods on the site.

Christiantuner.com A Christian Music radio station. Not ecommerce.

Winamp.com One can download free Inspirational music with the purchase of the Winamp software. Music production is not particularly good.

Calabashmusic.com This is really a World Music site with a small Inspirational category. When you find something you like, and start the purchase, it takes you to eztracks.com which then takes you to i-Tunes for final purchase. Long and involved process.

Amazon/inspirational.com A very odd division of Amazon. Deeply unorganized. No separation of genres – everything lumped together in a hodge-podge. About 140 titles. An Amazon afterthought.

Mienet.com This also is an odd Christian site that promotes Christian product (books, movies, knick-knacks) but strangely enough sells secular music and as far as we can tell, doesn’t really have Christian music.

Christianmusic.com A reference site only. No ecommerce. If you want to buy, it takes you to musicchristian.com.

Musicoffaith.com Non-original artist ripoffs. Offers free music, but no hard goods sales.

Christianity.com Same as above.

Musicchristian.com Reference site only. Very confusing.

Integritymusic.com This is one of the big 3 of Christian Music Labels. They command 13.5 percent of the label market share. Site is excellent, between 20 & 30 Christian music stars, they sell hard goods CDs off site but no DDLs.

Sparrowrecords.com This is another one of the big 3 of Christian Music Labels. Site is excellent, they have 24 Christian music stars. They sell no hard good CDs off site or DDLs.

wordlabelgroup.com This is the number one of the big 3 of Christian Music Labels. Site is excellent, they have 22 Christian music stars, they sell hard goods CDs off site but no DDLs.

Singingnews.com This is an on-line Christian magazine that is reference only. They talk about Christian music but sell no music off the site.

Watchfiremusic.com With free music downloads without prior email address commitments, a roster of 56 Inspirational artists, video, and both hard good and DDL sales right from the site, WFM is already placed as one of the leaders of both the Inspirational and Christian music website categories.

Long Live New Music!

March 6th, 2009

In the old record business model it used to be that the life span of an artist’s new CD was about 3 months. After 3 months, if a song or CD did not “break out”, the record company would usually give up on the CD and stop the promotion. Then the CD would die. Often, because of the high costs of storage, the excess CDs would simply be destroyed.

It usually takes 6 months to a year to create a CD. Why then so short a life span?

Because the money it took to promote it nationally, even locally, through radio was so exorbitant. In those short 3 months a company could literally spend millions of dollars basically promoting one single off the CD. If it tanked, bye bye to all the work. And most of them did just that – they tanked. For a great variety of reasons – many of which had nothing to do with the worth of the music.

Today, it’s an entirely different story. Radio is fast slipping away as the communication medium for music. The internet is the new radio. No longer do artists have to manufacture tens of thousands of CDs in preparation for launch. Digital downloads took care of that. The high cost of storing all those jewel cased CDs does not exist anymore. Promotion on the internet relies more on smart creativity than the almighty buck.

So now good and even great music does not have to die and disappear. It can simply sit there in virtual space and wait to be discovered. And so in a very intriguing way, music always remains new – new to the listener who discovers it.

This is one of the high concepts behind Watchfire Music. It’s a trusted destination for people of all faiths and cultures to explore, experience and ultimately purchase new Inspirational music – no matter how old it is. It is always new. Fifty years from now it can still be sitting there on our site at virtually no cost to us waiting to be discovered.

A good reason to explore the site. It’s all new.

Watchfire Music Inspirational Radio

Watchfire Music signs a deal with uVuMobile, a telecommunications company with 12 million subscribers, to provide content for two radio stations – WFM Heart Beat Radio, an up-tempo Inspirational radio station and WFM Quiet Soul Radio, a laid back and more contemplative format. Both stations will play Watchfire Music artist’s material 24/7 to subscriber’s cell phones.

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