How did Milwin get signed to Universal?

A couple of weeks ago we announced our new signing Milwin, but we thought it was about time we got to know him a little better, and find out just how he came to be signed.

Milwin had been a Spinnup artist for a few years, even since the release of his first single ‘Coming After You‘ in 2015.  After releasing a few more singles the Swedish Spinnup team discovered hMilwin’s latest track ‘Follow Your Heart’ and they introduced his songs to the A&Rs at Universal Music Sweden. Polydor saw potential in the 20-year old music producer, and the whole thing ended with a signing to Polydor Sweden! He re-released his single “Follow You Heart” with Polydor -it’s a great summer-banger that we hope you haven’t missed out on yet!

You can stream or buy the track it here!

Since then, we’ve gotten to know Milwin better, and now he has also given YOU a chance to get to know him too! Watch the video below to listen to his story behind ‘Follow Your Heart, his musical history, and don’t worry, he also has some advice for Spinnup artists who are serious about wanting to get discovered and signed!

Want to hear what Milwin is listening to right now? Check out his Favourites playlist on Spotify, and don’t forgot you can create your own artist playlists on Spotify – all you need is a verified page! Read our blog post here on getting verified on Spotify to find out how.

Pharrell’s hat, Gwen Stefani’s platinum blonde ‘do, Adele’s ballgowns – almost every big superstar has some kind of style or accessory they’ve trademarked. We don’t mean literally trademarked – unless of course you’re referring to J-LO’s derriere, which is apparently insured for a whopping $27 million! But is a style trademark just for the rich and famous?

via GIPHY

Sure, we don’t expect artists to have the kind of spending money that allows them to splash out on a new hairstyle, wardrobe, or photoshoot every other week, but trying to nail down your style doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise. Just look at Taylor Swift, all she’s got is a signature red lip which you can replicate with some change and a trip down to your local supermarket.

Your on stage/on camera style should always reflect not only your music, but your own personality. It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo artist or one of ten band members, you should always express your own personal style. Just remember that it’s great to have some kind of cohesive look when in a band – there’s nothing worse than seeing a group troupe up on stage with someone in a Hawaiian shirt, one in an Adidas leisure suit and the guy in the back clad in head to toe leather.

So how do you find a trademark style?

• Think about how you would visualise your music. Look back at your cover art or music videos, if you have any
• Finding a style trademark can be as easy as browsing through your wardrobe and finding the one accessory that you love more than anything else in the world – a scarf, jewellery, makeup, hat
• Ask friends and family to give you words that describe your music and apply those to your style \
• You could even follow in the footsteps of many a legend before you who has simply used a good ‘ol pair of glasses. Whether you need them or not, glasses are an easy style trademark – check out the array below from Buddy Holly to Bono and get some style inspiration.

As they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery…

 

Hall of Frames by Lenstore.co.uk

We’re always so proud of all our Spinnup artists that ’graduate’ from our service and go on to be signed by Universal Music. We make sure to keep tabs on them and update you all with their successes from time to time.

Swedish Capitol Music signing Albin Johnsén is a former Spinnup artist who was discovered after he released the song ”Din soldat”. It was picked up by the Scouts, who passed it on to the ears of the A&Rs at Universal Music Sweden. The track became a major hit locally, and in just two months was certified platinum! Today it was been streamed over 40 million times on Spotify!

Kosovare Asllani, forward in Swedens women’s national football team was a big fan of ”Din soldat” and asked Albin to write the official women’s euro-cup song.
Albin, who’s a huge football fan, did not hesitate to take her up on the offer!

He’d already begun writing a track set to the tempo the team requested, and set about crafting lyrics to match. The track is about fighting, not only within football but in life. The song is called ”Hjärtan av guld” and is inspired by Albin’s fight against anxiety and low self esteem.

”Hjärtan av guld” was released on June 8th and only three hours after being released it had already reached 100.000 people and at the moment the release has over 160.000 views on Facebook.

The Swedish/Cape Verdean producer duo VAZ is made up of the sisters Jenny & Cecilia Vaz. You may recognize Cecilia, as not only is she a Spinnup artist, but she was also a former Spinnup Scout in the Swedish team! The sister duo last week released their new release ”Luxury Problems”.

Having established themselves on the Swedish festival-stage in 2012 with the great success of their first release “Miss Frost”, the singer/songwriter/producer duo make music that is a mix of traditional African drums with electronic beats and multi-dimensional harmonies.

They want ”Luxury Problems” to be an inspiration to other producers and have made the song’s stems available for download – free for everyone to modify and remix! You can access the stems via the track’s website (http://lxry.pro/) which was made in collaboration with Stockholm-based creative network CCCOLLECTIVE.

Once you’ve pieced together the beat’s different parts – you’re able to download the ”Luxury Problems” remix pack, containing stems and press photos for the song. If you’re inspired to make your own version of a Luxury Problems remix and you want to show it off, Cecilia and Jenny are waiting to hear it! Send your remix over to remix@lxry.pro and they’ll get back to you as soon as they’ve listened 🙂

This is a great opportunity for all the Dj’s and producers out there to be creative with some very cool ready made stems!

Listen to ‘Luxury Problems’ here!

We are so proud to announce our 31st artist signing, Sweden’s Milwin! Not only has he signed to Polydor Sweden, but is releasing his new single ”Follow Your Heart” today!

Edwin Lindberg, known as ”Milwin” is a 20-year old music producer from Uddevalla who’s whole life has revolved around music. As a kid he showed an interest in playing drums, so his grandfather bought him a drum set. This drum set eventually turned into a guitar and then into a piano, in other words – this guy is a musical genius. The knowledge of how to play so many instruments inspired him to learn how to DJ and to produce music. In 2015 Milwin released his first single ”Coming After You” through Spinnup which received a huge number of streams!

”Follow Your Heart” is the single that Milwin is releasing with today, and the story behind this song is quite interesting.

Milwin actually found an early version of this track made by artist ”Sha”, who is based in Nigeria, on Soundcloud and asked him if they could re-work the track, and so the magic happened! After they released the song through Spinnup a while ago the Spinnup team in Sweden picked it up and showed it to the A&Rs at the local Polydor office, which resulted in a new signing!

Stream “Follow Your” Heart on Spotify below, or stream/download from the other stores.

We are so excited about this and congratulate Milwin on his signing!

We all know AC/DC’s anthemic single ‘Highway to Hell’, but did you know it took 40 years for the legendary band to get a top 10 hit?

While some artists like Chuck Berry and The Kinks found chart success almost overnight, many waited years if not decades for a hit. And some legendary acts like P-Funk and Velvet Underground NEVER had a top-10 song in the US or UK.

Visualising the birth of top hits from the greatest artists
Life and Times of the Greatest Artists visualises the careers of the 100 greatest artists according to Rolling Stone Magazine, and shows how long each artist took to score their first top 10 single in the US or UK.

What does the study show?

The longest wait
James Brown had to wait 12 years, AC/DC had to wait 40 years – even Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, had to wait 7. The average wait for a hit was 6 years.

See the 10 artists with the longest wait for a hit below:

1. AC/DC – 40 years with “Highway To Hell” in 2013

2. Public Enemy – 25 years with “Harder Than You Think” in 2007

3. Grateful Dead – 22 years with “Touch Of Grey” in 1987

4. Nine Inch Nails – 17 years with “The Hand That Feeds” in 2005

5. Curtis Mayfield – 16 years with “Freddie’s Dead” in 1972

6. Bruce Springsteen – 16 years with “Hungry Heart” in 1980

7. Johnny Cash – 15 years with “A Boy Named Sue” in 1969

8. Bob Marley – 13 years with “No Woman, No Cry” in 1975

9. Ray Charles – 12 years with “What’d I Say” in 1959

10. Jay Z – 12 years with “Hard Knock Life” in 1998

No-Hit Wonders
The visualisation also shows the 9 artists that never ever had a hit, despite having careers that lasted decades:

Among these:
Howlin’ Wolf
Bo Diddley
Parliament-Funkadelic
Velvet Underground

Additional data
Filters can be used to explore how these artists’ careers overlapped/intersected and to answer the following questions;
Which artist had the longest and shortest career?
Who had a comeback?
Which decade produced the most “great artists”?
Artists belonging to which genre of music had the longest wait for a hit?

Overnight success or decades of effort?
The piece would make a cool story for anyone that’s been plugging away for a while without a hit, as it challenges the preconception that the greats achieved chart success straight away, or that their musical vision were somehow fully formed from the start.

Explore the full interactive chart here – don’t blame us if you find you’ve lost minutes or hours of your time playing around with it

 

When you’ve put so much effort into your music, don’t let your release down by pairing it with anything but amazing cover art.

A great track needs a great artwork – with millions of songs on Spotify and Apple Music these days you definitely need a professional cover art to stand out in the crowd.

Our friends at Cover Art Factory have always given Spinnup artists 10% in store, and even helped us celebrate reaching 100,000 artists by offering a limited time offer that was three times that during our special free release period.

We are so excited to announce that Cover Art Factory now offer a huge 25% discount on all of their products!

Cover Art Factory is the #1 online design service for the music industry. In addition to cover art design they also create lyric videos, social media design, band logos and much more. All designs are created by professional, verified designers and always with fixed, affordable fees and fast delivery.

We’ve had great reviews from the numerous Spinnup artists who have used Cover Art Factory in the past. So make sure you take advantage of this special offer, as it will only last until May 31, 2017.

To receive 25% off all products at coverartfactory.com, use code SPINNUP25 at checkout.

 

 

Last weekend Spinnup Sweden teamed up with the audio production-school SAE Institute for a Songwriting Camp, and MAGIC was created!

The day started at 10am at Soundtrade Studios where current and old students of SAE gathered at the school for an introduction with different briefs to work on. They were divided into groups and kept working together for the whole day and the results from this were amazing!

We hope to hear some new releases from this songwriting camp coming through Spinnupvery soon! Well done to all the songwriters who attended and worked hard all day, and big thanks to all the people who participated and help put on a great day!

Check out some of the photos from the songwriting camp below, or view them all on Facebook.