As well as regular download versions, they are also offering a deluxe package with a twist. For $40 (€27.83) you get the album in lossless FLAC format, bonus songs and videos but most importantly, royalty-free stems of each song with the legal right to create new music or remixes from the band’s work.You can sell them commercially if you like or you can submit your music back to Joey and Dave via Soundcloud for the opportunity to be included in the second side of a vinyl package called The Everybody Else later in the year. Now, the name makes sense. More info at theeverybody.com.

These Pixies guys aren’t the only ones experimenting with online submissions as it was announced that annoying gossip blogger Perez Hilton is to team up with pop choreographer Jamie King, American Idol creator and entertainment management mogul Simon Fuller in a bid to bring us “The Boy Band for the next generation”. Groan.

Using the website boybandsearch.com, the trio are looking for boys between the ages of 13 and 21 who are great singers and dancers to create three one-minute videos and submit it to the site. One video will be a dance audition, one will be a up-tempo song and of course, in the grand tradition of boy band clichés, the last will be a slow-tempo audition. The sycophantic Perez had this positive message to pass along to adolescent males: “We don’t want any ugly ones… That shouldn’t discourage people from auditioning. We really wanna see everyone. [But] we don’t want anyone that’s, like, hideous. We want five Justin Timberlakes.”

Away from manufactured boy bands, we have a fine example of a UK band who got themselves noticed by a major label in a new way. Using the UK-based slicethepie.com, Yorkshire indie-folk band Scars On 45 secured £15,000 (€17,000) funding from their fanbase towards album recording in return for a copy of the album and a possible return on investment.

Well those committed fans must have felt some vindication recently when it was announced that the band were to be signed to a worldwide deal with Atlantic/ Chop Shop Records. This meant each fan who invested shares in the band was bought out at a 50% premium to the market price. Not only do the band they love get a chance to do things on a global scale but the fans get some financial kickback from it too.

“Who is Sliimy?” was a phrase bandied about by many music celebs like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Britney Spears on Twitter last month and within hours most of their followers (and intended audience) found out whether they wanted to or not. Sliimy turned out to be the first signing to celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s major label-backed record label Perezcious ( like “precious” but harder to pronounce), a French Mika-esque pop star with funny hair who releases an album in September.

Perez had enlisted the help of his celebrity friends to promote Sliimy to the masses. Perez may not be as groundbreaking as he intends to look though. Sliimy is already signed to Warner in France so Perez’s endorsement is merely an attempt to help Sliimy break into the U.S. Market.
While Perez has the pop culture platform for endorsing artists through tours and labels, on the other end of the scale, most are still relying on word of mouth and blogger recommendations to help them get where they want to go.

You couldn’t get more of a polar opposite to Perez than Neon Gold Records. The “boutique” New York-based label started by two New York college kids Lizzy and Derek began life as a blog in August last year with the express aim of releasing 7-inches of artists they were excited about. They used the music blog as their mouth-piece for getting the acts noticed and then would release 500 copies of each release, creating a hip label that majors now look to for upcoming acts.

Their indie-buzz acts have gone on to secure major label deals as the two became known as online tastemakers. Their first release was Passion Pit’s Sleepyhead – a band now signed to Sony, followed by the wonderful Marina and the Diamonds – now signed to Warner and playing Electric Picnic next week.

Most recently, Neon Gold have been bigging up the likes of London’s Ellie Goulding, Australian popster Goyte, Boston’s synth-heavy Yes Giantess, Swedish DIY pop band The Sound of Arrows and David Byrne soundalike Wolf Gang.

It proves that even without the mega-dollars hoarded by the likes of Perez, you can still make a difference. Expect many of these bands to be on the major label release schedule come the end of the year.

This hasn’t stopped Twitter becoming the first port of call for many looking to announce or denounce. Last week, NME Editor Conor McNicolas resigned from his position on the micro-blogging service telling his “followers” that he is moving to become editor at Top Gear magazine while in the aftermath to a alleged assault between celebrity blogger Perez Hilton and Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas, both took to Twitter and videoblogs to fight their corner. Perez tweeted that he was attacked by Will.I.Am and his security guards – “I am bleeding. I need to file a police report.” He had time to tweet but not ring the police?

Will.I.Am in response, was quick to point fingers at Perez as the source of the altercation for calling him “a faggot”. Yawn. The general consensus is that Perez over-reacted as he did later in the week when he posted a distasteful rumour that Michael Jackson was looking for publicity and not actually dying. As as result, hundreds of Twitter users have been calling for a boycott of the blogger.

On the positive side of Twitter take the example of Amanda Palmer. The Dresden Dolls frontwoman has been an active user of the service using it to directly engage with fans and managed to turn her addiction into revenue. After announcing a “LOSERS OF FRIDAY NIGHT ON THEIR COMPUTERS” party to her 30,000 followers recently, Palmer had managed to mobilise a virtual flash mob within minutes. After the virtual group came up with a list of things that the government should do for people who hang out on their computers on a Friday night (free government-issued sweatpants and pizza), Palmer designed a t-shirt with the slogan “Don’t Stand Up For What’s Right, Stay In For What’s Wrong”. By the end of the night, she had grossed $11,000 in t-shirt sales via a hastily-put together Paypal page. A few days later, she hosted a webcast auction and a twitter-only donation gig which made her a further $8,000 in total. As Palmer put it – her total made from her major label deal – $0, total made from Twitter – €19,000.