For better or worse, the music industry leans heavily in favor of supporting major artists. If big time musical acts want their songs available for streaming, the usual suspects have their backs. And when it comes to social media, all the mainstream platforms push their music. Independent artists are like second-class citizens; until they break through, it can feel as though they’re invisible. Not everyone in the industry treats young artists this way. There’s the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), a non-profit organization that has supported indie record labels since 2005. Creative types have BeatBread, which funds artists’ careers with flexible royalty advances. Groover helps musicians promote their music, get on playlists, find a manager, and more.
Yet until now, there hasn’t been an app for independent artists to truly get discovered by fans. On the flipside, listeners have for too long lacked a natural way of finding those artists online. Hoping to fix this problem is Vocana, a fresh style of streaming and interactivity service built for indie artists and the music-lovers who adore them.
The president of this newly minted platform is Neil Sheehan. He entered the music industry straight out of college by creating a concert promotion firm he ran from his attic. “I was throwing what I consider bullshit hardcore punk VFW shows,” he colorfully notes. Within a year, he had a dozen people under his command. Booking around 300 concerts annually, he gained a rapid foothold in the independent space. That success naturally led to management and then a recording studio. “For about nine years, we became like an incubator for independent, DIY bands,” he recalls. In due time, RED Distribution, then owned by Sony, wooed him to start a label. Standby Records released over 200 albums in its dozen years. Then after COVID hit, Sheehan dipped his toe into livestreaming.
Having worked on many sides of the independent space, Sheehan was on the radar of Jim Knight and Dale Chorba, Vocana’s cofounders. Being lovers of music yet never having been a part of the music business, they needed someone with Sheehan’s expertise. They reached out, explaining how the inspiration for Vocana came from going to shows and seeing tip jars on stage. Why wasn’t streaming paying enough for bands to survive? It was time someone created a service that paid more fairly, they thought. Sheehan proposed a system featuring user-centric payouts rather than the pro rata system preferred by Spotify and Apple, where the profits are put into one pot that gets distributed to everyone. With Vocana, “You pay $10, listen to 10 bands, and it gets split between those 10 bands,” he explains. Plans are in place for a new type of system that will identify whether an act is A.I., further protecting the purses of deserving players.
There were other problems Sheehan wanted to address, one being access to user data. DSPs such as Deezer provide a heat map showing how many listeners are accessing an artist’s music, yet there isn’t much that can be done with that info. Vocana provides actual email addresses of fans, so bands can reach out and foster individual relationships. Worry not: contact information is only shared when listeners agree.
A third matter Sheehan wanted to tackle is the discovery experience. Sheehan hopes to revive the person-to-person music-sharing ethos of MySpace, and Vocana’s Hubs are designed to do just that. Incidentally, artists can follow fans, just as fans can follow artists.
The fourth and final problem he wanted to tackle is the algorithm, which has prevented many an indie artist from getting on playlists and into new ears. Vocana remains algorithm-free, making for an even playing field.
If you’re an independent musician with a distribution deal in place, your music may already be on Vocana. The ambitious startup has inked deals with distributors such as DistroKid, Downtown, United Masters, MNRK, and CD Baby. Anyone who has music on the service can simply log on and claim their page. Vocana currently boasts over 50 million tracks.
Besides being home to heaps of on-demand listening, Vocana offers livestreaming. Audience members can give real-time reactions and make comments during shows. Tip jars are always present, should anyone feel the urge to give. All tip money goes directly to the intended recipients without Vocana taking a cut.
A partnership with Printful makes it a snap for artists to sell merch. Because it’s an on-demand service, bands don’t have to create a bunch of t-shirts and stickers in advance and then worry about storing them until buyers come knocking. Anyone who doesn’t want to use Printful can make goods from elsewhere available via a link.
The company is getting into the IRL music game, too, producing a series of concerts set to begin in New York City, with plans to extend elsewhere. Vocana even hopes to compete with TikTok by offering short form videos they call Moments.
Interested readers can download the app through the Apple Store or Google Play. Vocana was still in public beta at the time Sheehan spoke with Music Connection. Once the service officially goes live, there will be two tiers: Vocana Free and Vocana Plus. Those who subscribe for $8.99 will be able to download as much music as they want. Otherwise, there will be a 30-second limit on checking out tracks. Sheehan wanted to make sure the entire experience was ad-free for both versions. “That always bugged me,” he grouses. “If I’m in the zone listening to a hardcore album and all of a sudden, I hear a Pampers commercial, that sucks.”
Sheehan hopes Vocana complements other streaming options rather than replaces them. “We’re not looking to compete with Spotify or Deezer or Tidal,” he explains, noting he’s as much a buff of major label output as anybody. “But if you’re wanting music discovery, community, and independent bands, nobody’s really claimed that spot.”
