I am willing to confidently say that every one of us who visit Beatport have been frustrated at one point or another and thought to ourselves “How in the world did this track make it on here?” or “I’ve seriously just listened to 5 minimal tracks in a row labeled as trance…”

Seems like it’s time to address issues that many grumble about over time but nothing seems to happen. Our beloved Beaport, the home to many wonderful tracks and fist pumping exclusives, needs a good and thorough maintenance session.

Beatport made a good move when they started requiring labels to make a minimum $300 in gross sales per quarter during a probation like period when they start out over 3 quarters, after which if they fail to meet the total of $900 in gross sales over those 3 quarters (9 fricken month, only 100 bucks a month they need to pull in)  then they get the boot and can reapply only after a certain amount of time. Applaud and all for this, but by no means is this enough. It’s just the first step.

It’s no surprise that Beatport more often than not is the source of 60% to 100% of a labels revenue from track sales. So it’s obviously an effective and popular market place, can you imagine the potential increase in both consumer satisfaction and sales if the usability was improved?

Here are a few issues I have experienced myself and other people have complained about (in no particular order):

01: So much crap music. Not as in “this track is lame” or “I don’t like this style” but it’s just downright amateur on both a composition level and as a final production. Of course you can hear this straight from the preview and no one buys the track for this reason but the fact the track, and many more like it, are even on the store saturates the marketplace. The music should be commercial grade if it’s being sold to the public, otherwise don’t even put it up! It takes 10-30 seconds for someone with a good ear to recognize a poorly produced track, so it doesn’t take too much time, even with a high volume of tracks. And if a label starts submitting songs like this on a regular basis, let them know that it’s unacceptable and if they continue, BOOT THEM OFF! Labels are a dime a dozen these days anyway. (If you are a label owner reading this, don’t start crying, I’ll explain more later on the topic of labels)

02: Genre mess. Minimal being labeled as trance, progressive house being labeled as chill-out, and electro house being labeled as minimal. Yes, genre is subjective to an extent but a track that has the same kick and snare for 30 minutes with only 1 repeated bass note and nothing else is clearly not trance, chill-out, or whatever else it is mislabeled as. Genre tags give the consumer the ability to screen out all the other tracks and only browse through tracks that are exactly or roughly similar to what they are looking for. I’ve heard from labels that Beatport changed the genre tag for their tracks from what they submitted them as and I’ve also heard from others that labels themselves put the tracks into ridiculous categories. Although both are quite possible, it needs to be fixed either way. If it’s the labels screwing up, give them a smack upside their head, on the other hand, if it’s you Beatport then please stop screwing with the submitted genre tags! It may seem petty to some but people who listen to EDM, IDM, etc. are really really into it. They will spend an obscene amount of time indulging in all things related to it (speaking from guilty experience here :D ) and one of the things they do is shop for new tunes! If they have to dig through 100 tracks to find 5 that are worth purchasing because a good 40 of these tracks were bad quality or not even the genre they were looking for, this is bad for everyone, label, Beatport, consumer, producer, DJ, etc.

03: Remix contests, buying parts from the songs? It seems like more and more the purpose from the remix contests is to get as many people as possible to buy the parts for the track to remix them and come up with so-so remixes rather than encourage competition and give talented producers a chance to make a name for themselves by doing an epic remix of some big producer’s  track. People are noticing that the quality of remixes submitted and chosen as winners has gone down hill considerably. Maybe the good producers would jump on board if they didn’t have to pitch out just to participate?  Just something to chew on.

04: Charts are important. I think it was a great idea to do charts on Beatport and more emphasis should be put on them! It makes a lot of sense, DJ’s have already gone through music and compiled together good tracks. This is valuable in itself to many people so they can possibly find that one awesome but elusive track a DJ played at a show/club or simply save time and go straight to the hot tracks.

05: Email. If you guys have customer support and provide contact information then here is a really crazy idea, maybe you should answer it or at least take note and do something about the problems people email you about? Such as not being able to log in to the forums to vote/post while the same log in works fine on the store, etc.

I’m sure there is more that I forgot about but these 5 things are what come straight to mind when I think about how Beatport could be improved.

Oh wait, here is another.

06: The Flash interface. I know flash is cool and all but it’s not a good idea to run a store on it seeing as every time a friend sends you a link it has to reload the whole file on the page (to the impulsive geek: yes, I do know about caching the swf, new acceleration in flash etc.) Seems like it may be a good idea to update the actual structure. Especially now that HTML 5 and better server technologies are making it possible to substitute flash and still have a snazzy site. Speed is of the essence! Consumers, and of all people DJ’s just don’t have the time to wait around for the loading every time they go on beatport or pull up a link to a track. And the CPU hit thanks to Flash frustrates them even more. Beatport in three or more tabs/windows to compare tracks? Forget it.

That’s about it for now. As promised earlier I will now address all the label owners who probably consider me an enemy for life after I suggested Beatport not hesitate to give crap labels the boot. I myself am in your shoes, but you guys need to come to terms with the fact that the whole music industry is going through big changes. Especially when it comes to labels and the way things work. In the EDM scene everyone and their uncle is starting a label these days. 95% of these people have no clue what they are doing. And the other 4% who actually get off the ground end up giving up in the end, their label becomes inactive, they go bankrupt or never make enough money to grow, or they are stuck in a cycle of releasing lame products (music) and lack the skills required to run a quality label, a quality business!

The last 1% are the people who spend day and night learning all they can from everyone they can, thinking up how they can provide others with quality music, how they can promote great tracks effectively to increase sales and keep producers happy and the label alive. They do these things with passion and insane determination to get their label off the ground, established, and reputable. They are in tune with reality and adapt to conditions of the music industry. They use all their resources effectively and wisely. Chances are if you are mad about me saying some labels should be kicked off Beatport as part of quality control then you are one of the people who though they would open a label and become an instant millionaire, started a label to release your own crap tunes because no sane label would, or one of the majority who have no idea what they are doing and therefore; prematurely started a label.

The other 1% who read what I wrote about quality control on Beatport nodded along no matter how small their label is because they are ready to fight it out through thick and thin. They are the ones who are just as frustrated with the problems I talked about and understand the potential growth and benefit to all. These are the label owners who will not settle for anything less than the best because they know that when it comes to music and the impact it makes on people’s life there is no room or reason to compensate for anything less.

These are my thoughts on Beatport, I’d really like to hear what you have to say, agree or disagree tell me about your personal experiences and/or suggestion you may have for Beatport!

P.S.

If anyone at Beatport reads this please understand that if I didn’t like Beatport or think it was a good store I wouldn’t even bother writing about it. This whole article is meant in a purely constructive way to improve the store and all connected with it, both business and consumer.

Posted in: News | Posted on August 8, 2010 by Ivan