Different music styles / Same artist?

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Exactly. But it is not very successful, they are all afraid of water.

This feels like an electronic music problem in particular… putting genre before artist.

If I’m exploring someone’s catalogue it’s because I like the way they make music, and it’s generally not tied to what kind of music they make.

It probably does make sense to have a different artist name as a working DJ vs releasing your own songs/albums…

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Oh interesting to see that so many have the same thoughts!! Good for me :wink:

I would like to bring a third solution into the room:
Handle it like a large company and invent sub-brands, which can be marketed together.
So for example Cool Artist Name Deep / Cool Artist Name Hard / Cool Artist Name Volksmusik
So at least in streaming services you would keep the “artist radio” clean.
But actually I want to make music and not found a brand empire :slight_smile:

Mainly, but not exclusively.
When I listen to a punk playlist in the car, I want punk and not folk music just because the singer of one of the bands wanted to try something new :wink:

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The band Boris (used to) have a convention where crowd-pleasing riff-fest albums put the band’s name in all caps, but experimental/drone/post-rock albums get the name in all lowercase

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Well yeah, I don’t disagree but usually a punk playlist would have been curated right, so punk band’s non-punk side-adventure probably won’t have been added to it?

And a singer from a band trying a separate project is generally done under a different name by default.

Yeah, becomes tricky as a one man band - but maybe it’s auto-generated playlists that are the issue.

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I have similar tastes in music and went with two names.
Michal (Ho) for house, techno, electro (since 2001). Mijatoho for jungle/d&b (since 1999). The latter hasn’t released anything in years though.

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It’s a thing.

Good example is Bill Leeb’s music. Depending on the style of music it gets released as Front Line Assembly, Delerium or one of half a dozen other projects.

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Hei

I would go with two separate aliases. If I was listening to your house tune, feeling it, wondering if you got more of the good stuff, and then it’s DnB… :man_shrugging:

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I also thought about this numerous times and i don’t know the answer. But i’m staying with one name for multiple styles right now. Björk never changed her name for all kinds of different styles. Ok, i’m not Björk but i want to be like her. :slight_smile:

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This.

Just keep making the music you want to make. Don’t release it straight away, gather an EP’s worth of similar tunes the release it. The identity you’ll use will be clearer that way, regardless of having DNB & house releases.

^That worked for one of my favourite musicians, Justin Broadrick. His career has been pushing an identity/project to the point of needing spin off aliases. Godflesh -> Jesu -> Pale Sketcher is probably the best example.

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I have a whole catalog of aliases, identities connected to concepts and/or genres.
Even better…sometimes, i’m a whole band.
That way i can do all the Funk, Indie, Rock, Jazz, Experimental, Electronic, Ambient, Metal i want…
The perks of having no career to sink, and no audience to disappoint.

There’s also the Zappa/Bungle/… way
Playing WITH the music : then you can mix Ska, Baroque, RnB and Polka in the same track…My favorite.

Treat Yourself.

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It depends on your ambitions as a artist. If you are happy to post some stuff to Bandcamp and a make a few sales then it doesn’t really matter. If you have larger ambitions then how you brand it will make a difference.

If your goal is to be a pro I would suggest making one of the two genres your lead genre and then after a while release the other style as well (alias or not doesn’t really matter as much if you have a following).

Alternatively you could make it your thing to not care about genre- it is a bit of a harder thing to pull off branding wise (and musically) but possible. It would be better to be more eclectic if this is what you are going for and to try to keep a sonic pallet across the different genres so it always sounds like you.

Hope that helps and all makes sense. Happy to answer more questions, I have a bit of experience in dance music.

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I’ve been thinking about this topic again as I work on a new album that is very, very different from my past work. Most of the solo material I’ve released has been instrumental, electronic stuff in the 100-130 bpm range. The new album I’m working on is <100 bpm, minimal, R&B / Quiet Storm-inspired tracks with delicate, falsetto vocals through Auto-tune.

By the very nature of singing again, this work feels much more personal to me, which makes me want to just stick to using the name I’ve been using (which is my real name). On the other hand, part of me worries that anyone that has heard my music previously is going to be really confused.

Not making any decisions till the album is done but this feels like something that I could use some input on. Does it matter? Is it worth going through the effort of starting a new project for this new sonic approach? Thanks to anyone who chimes in here.

I’ve got two monikers, one for my shitty techno, and one for my okay other work. Will probably end up with a third one for my Norwegian troubadour nonsense, probably just my name.

But my thinking is that, if you’re actually serious about your music career, which I’m not, stick with one, if the genres are closely enough related. And then work at making it all sound like a cohesive expression.

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Oh man, I generally try to avoid Zappa/Bungle kind of music! It is like having a pizza with a runny egg in the middle. And yes, I have had that at some hip London restaurant.

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I do jazz under my own name, Prog metal under my initials, and electronic music under an alias. The alias came about years ago during a video shoot and it stuck, so everyone I know in the electronic and DJ scene calls me by the alias, even in person.

I kind of like having it compartmentalized.

Absolutely normal to have multiple aliases for different styles or artistic “personalities” (and I do it frequently). I think it’s a part of the fun of all of this.

(And just recalling typical 90’s techno compilations, oh my, some producers were using dozens of alias in one style on one compilation)

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That’s what I did in the end.

There was a similar thread some time ago. Maybe there are some useful answers too.