Vanity House Extravaganza!

Three important announcements regarding our Vanity House program:

New Featured Album: FNFN - fnessnej

Check out our newest featured album - fnessnej by FNFN - a Vanity House release that What.CD gets a two-day pre-release preview of! FNFN's fun combination of electro, indie, and prog makes fnessnej a toe-tapping blend that will perfectly fit the start of your summer!

Read an interview with the artist and discuss the album here.

The What CD 2013: A Series of EPs

Check out the April EP and the May EP now, both of which are currently Freeleech for your enjoyment!

Along with our new featured album, we'd like to remind everyone of our thriving Vanity House forum--a place where the artists of What.CD can promote their music.

One of the ongoing VH projects has been a regular compilation of the Vanity House's best offerings into an album called "The What CD." ChemicalRascal has been graciously heading this up for some time now, so I caught up with him earlier to discuss the program, and his continued support of it:

0. Hello!

Questions? Darn, now I have to pretend to be an intellectual and stuff. Awww.

1. What is the What.CD?

The What CD is a semi kinda-regular compilation album of music from Vanity House artists. The objective is to spotlight some of the best talent to grace What.CD, especially artists that might not have been widely heard otherwise.

Of course, the 2013 "volume" of the project is a bit different to previous volumes, as we're releasing a bunch of pre-final-album EPs. Indeed, that's what is being released today. The final album is going to be out in early November! Mark your calendars!

2. What does Vanity House mean to you? Why spend all the time compiling tracks and artwork?

Well, at first I did it because I just wanted to see the fifth volume of The What CD eventuate - the original manager didn't have time to continue to do it, so I sort of stuck up my hand in a thread and then ended up driving the show. But over the last couple of volumes, it's become more than just because I'm the shmuck behind the wheel.

I've developed - always had, I suppose - this respect and appreciation for "the bedroom musician", so to speak, the little guy who isn't yet world-famous and doing jam-packed concerts at multi-billion dollar venues. To me, the Vanity House is What.CD's bedroom musicians, from the guy working with "weird" experimental trance electronica literally in his bedroom to the pub cover-song singing guitarist who writes songs about lost love during his downtime. These are the guys who might be on their first steps towards that proverbial stardom, or might just be interested in expressing themselves to those that stumble upon them, and fame be damned. And if I can help that, whatever that is, I feel like I aught'a.

And, of course, I get to tell chicks that I'm a music producer. That's another reason.

3. What do you see as the role of VH to the wider What.CD community?

Beyond being a sort of source of community pride, I guess, a little microcosm of "our own music", I think VH offers to the consumer new, usually different (sometimes quite different) sounds and musical ideas, something not necessarily tempered and moulded by a desire to sell sell sell.

To the artist, I think VH both a form of promotion, and a neat form of feedback and even inspiration - What.CD is huge, and whether it be from fellow musician or from an avid listener, someone is always going to have some nugget of wisdom or some idea.

4. What's your opinion of music sharing online? Does it work as a distribution model? A PR model? Where do you see the future of sites like What.CD contributing to the music community as a whole?

I think it works if you can "advertise" it well enough. Of course, there are always going to be interested parties, but sometimes you do have to put the PR hat on. Though, because these sites form these microcosms, these unique communities with their rather unique benefits and opportunities of progression or even just audience, I think websites like What.CD will always exist for musicians. I don't know if we'll have a massive impact on the community as a whole, however; although it would be interesting to see a world where the vast majority of music (in terms of "sales") was self-published, I doubt such a state would occur by our actions alone.

You can discuss The What CD compilations in this thread - and keep an eye on the Vanity House Forum for submission information for the June EP!

The What.Ambient Compilation

Along with regular issues of The What CD, we've also had special editions - Holiday, Music, Twang, 80's. And now?

The What.Ambient Compilation!

"name of user" organized the project:

user wrote:

Hi everyone. I'm writing to you with good news (yay)! I wanted to let you know that we have just finished organizing an album featuring a collective of artists that are all 'in-house' What.CD members. The compilation took almost 6 months to complete, and had enough entries that we had to carefully select the best of the best. To even my own surprise, the quality of music is very high, as well as diverse (within the general 'Ambient' category). The tracks have been mastered as well, although they only needed very minor tweaking (and, as per the artists' interest, we did not want to alter the original work very much).

I spent a couple weeks working on the album art, which was one of the last stages of completion. In addition to this, with the help of another member, we have compiled a well organized text file featuring artist statements, general artist locations, and links to hear more of their work and/or contact info.