Jeeni Blog

Helping the next generation of talent to build a global fanbase

Weekly Round-Up #8

/ By Doug Phillips
Weekly Round-Up #8

The latest developments and additions to Jeeni's mission!

Rock-star Eden James joins Jeeni!  

New York based Eden James has joined Jeeni’s ranks of global stars. “I like what you do and I would love to help,” Eden says. "I was fortunate to have musicians from Bruce Springsteen's, Paul Simon's and David Bowie's bands contribute to my studio recordings. The last 6 months have been a huge success for me, winning 25 music and video awards around the globe, and receiving a slew of reviews and interviews from some of the biggest music magazines out there, including Classic Rock magazine and American Songwriter magazine.” We’ll be bringing you exclusives from this Number One chart topper right here, meanwhile check out his Jeeni showcase at https://jeeni.com/showcase/edenjames/ 

New Content Contributed to Jeeni’s Database of Talent! 

Fresh, new music has been poured into Jeen’s diverse collection of artistry and talent. The aforementioned Eden James has provided a vintage and classic collection of tracks for our ever-growing rock channel, including ‘New York’ and ‘Black Book’.  

The industry legend, Lennox Campbell also contributed some of the stellar RnB and soul tracks that he’s produced such as ‘Beautifull’ and ‘Lost One’s’.  

Another exciting new addition to Jeeni is the UK chill-rap artist, Cassius Gray. Achieving over 2 million streams across his discography, Cassius has achieved so much already and we can’t wait so promote him further. Check out tracks like ‘From Here On Out’ and ‘Flight 22’ on Jeeni, now. 

Featuring members with connections to Elton John and Hanz Zimmer, ‘Coolstar’ is an epic collaboration of all sorts of artists and have offered the tracks ‘Homeland’ and ‘I Keep Walkin.’ to Jeen’s database. 

Brand new music from Daisy Chute and I K 8OY has also been added to Jeeni today, on the same day as their releases. Check out Daisy’s ‘Cradle Songs’ and I K 8OY’s ‘Let You Know’. 

New Jeeni Blogs Published!

In anticipation for Maple Sky’s new single, ‘Vision’, set to be released next Saturday, we prepared an ‘Artist Focus’ blog for the smooth jazz quartet, “Maple Sky specialise in a broad and flexible portrayal of jazz with influences from Esperanza Spalding, Yebba, and D’angelo.” 

We’ve also been reviewing and praising the stunning work of our artists. Beginning with Glaswegian rock band, Respite’s first EP, ‘Vol.1’, “This five-track project is a triumphant and proud announcement of a new advancement in their style, synergy and musicianship.”  

We also had two single reviews, for Arianna May’s ‘Suffolk Bay’ and Baby Panna’s ‘Golden’. On Suffolk Bay, Arianna May’s “vision is translated through her expressive piano playing and is then fully realised by her sweet, graceful vocals which glide as delicately as the accompanying strings.”. Baby Panna’s ‘Golden’ is an impactful final track for his debut mixtape, “The instrumental landscape set for this frank and passionate narrative is an atmospheric and soulful wave of spaced-out beats and crackly samples.” 

Jeeni also featured its first live review of Giack Bazz’s incredible set from last Friday (21st, January), “Considering the arsenal of instruments Giack typically uses to convey his vision, the emotive power that he communicated with just his voice, a guitar and a pedal board was astonishing.”  We loved attending Giack’s gig in East-London and we’d love to see our artists perform more often.  

Reach out to the Jeeni marketing team at doug@jeeni.com or ella@jeeni.com. 

Make sure you're following us on social media to keep up to date with new releases from our artists, our blogs and any job openings. 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeenimusic/  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeenimusic  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeenimusic  

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/33222018/admin/ 

03
Sep

The Creator of Jeeni.

Jeeni has returned to Crowdcube to raise more funds for helping new talent. Jeeni founding director Mel Croucher says, “I admit we're ahead of our original schedule, but there's still so much more to do. We need to scale our online platform globally now and build our mass artist showcases. Then we can hit all our targets, and give our new artists the recognition they deserve.” It is day 5 today and we have raised 98% of our target £100K. If you want to see our pitch click HERE. Mel has been writing the best-loved column in top-selling tech magazines for over 30 years. Now he's agreed to share his work with all our members. He's a video games pioneer and musician, and to to find out more about Mel check out his Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Croucher. Here's one of Mel's latest! There was once a little Quaker boy called Charlton, who got sent off to a nice school in Oxfordshire. Charlton liked videogames very much indeed, and when he turned thirteen he became a fan of one particular game which was called Deus Ex Machina. It was hopelessly life-affirming and it allowed him to influence the plotline and outcome, just like a load of similar games. But it was also the first truly interactive movie, running in real time, with voice actors and a full music soundtrack. It came with a large monochrome poster of the face of a beautiful, innocent, yet alluring lady robot, which the boy hung on his wall. And that thought pleases me, because I was the creator of the game, and my intention was to blow the minds of children just like Charlton. Ten years later, he was no longer a Quaker schoolboy but a stroppy atheist, and he was making a living writing very naughty cartoon strips and highly scurrilous columns for a computer magazine called PC Zone. I hope his career choice was influenced by the naughty cartoon strips and scurrilous columns I was writing for the rival magazines he devoured, but I suspect he already considered me to be an old fart. Back then I believed it was my mission to take the piss out of anyone and everyone in the computer industry, and so did young Charlton. He was calling himself Charlie by then. Charlie Brooker. Today, Charlie Brooker is probably best known as the creator of the Netflix phenomenon Black Mirror. In a brilliant episode, he didn’t just nick my idea of an interactive movie where players influence the plotline and outcome, he went and did it for real. He set his episode in 1984, which was the year of my game’s release, and he hung my old poster on the wall for a touch of authenticity. And yes, he did ask permission. And yes, I was more than happy to give it to him. And no, he didn’t pay me. Brooker’s use of the branching narrative was absolutely seamless, and when the viewer-player-actor makes a choice via a mouse or remote control there is absolutely no buffering involved. And just like in my old game, if the viewer-player-actor refuses to make a choice, then the movie-game-stage makes it for them. In the future, I am sure this technique will become an active tool of the porn and ultra-violence industries, but consumers of mainstream entertainment have become more and more bone idle over the years. In fact vast numbers can’t even be bothered to select the crap entertainment they watch or play, but allow algorithms to select for them. So no, this is not the future of movies, it’s the past. Charlie Brooker didn’t predict this, and neither did I. It was predicted by Ray Bradbury in his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, where books have been banned because they encourage people to think, and the 1966 film of that story was one of my greatest influences. In the movie, the writer/director François Truffaut introduces us to a world in which the masses consume pap via personal screens, and believe they have choice in determining the outcome of all sorts of vacuous plotlines. They don’t, of course, and the purpose of such so-called entertainments is to pretend the people have a say in the way things are run, what choices they have, and what garbage they believe in. And here we are, more than half a century later, living in just such a society. And we don’t even need movies to condition the masses, we can use videogames. People who live-stream their gameplay are called streamers. People who watch them playing are called lost souls. Today more people watch streamers play sports simulations than watch live sport. This passive practice is ridiculously popular on streaming sites like Twitch, YouTube and a whole host of others. Even back in 2014, Twitch streams for computer games attracted more traffic than America’s leading cable and satellite network HBO, with professional streamers mashing up high-level play and banal commentary. Now they can extort big money from sponsors, subscriptions, and donations. Last year, passive viewers watched active players for more than 450 billion minutes of streamed content on Twitch alone, as the streamers jiggled and babbled while playing with themselves at FIFA 19, Monster Hunter World and all the rest. One such streamer is a charming young man called Richard Tyler Blevins, who sports attractive neon-tinted hair and goes by the name of Ninja. He has minted around ten million dollars from subscribers who pay to watch him play a game called Fortnight. Let me just make that clear – they are not paying to play Fortnite themselves, they are paying to watch Mr Ninja play. Fortnite involves a hundred players at a time who fight and butcher one other to the death until only one is left alive, all in high-definition video. There are currently 200 million players of the game. The youngest players are aged eight, which should worry their parents, but probably doesn’t because mom and pop are too busy passively watching some other streamer. The average age of a Fortnite player is 13, which is the same age as the schoolboy Charlie Brooker was when my hopelessly life-affirming game helped turn him into a potty-mouthed cynic. At least I know I succeeded in something. Click HERE to visit or return to jeeni.com

10
Apr

Daisy Chute on Music, Performing and Life during 2020

Tonight, is the night that we launch the JAM Festival where seventeen acts from around the world will beat the pandemic restrictions and join together to perform in a virtual festival called JAM, and they guarantee complete unknowns will get equal billing with world-famous headliners. So please register that you are Going or Interested, and we will keep you posted each day of acts and keep you informed about their performances. Please like, share and invite your friends to join in the fun, it's going to be awesome. https://fb.me/e/1etPauFMV Don't worry if your busy or miss it, we will be featuring the festival on Jeeni.com from the 11th of April 2021, for you to watch when you are next free. Ahead of the JAM Festival we had a quick catch up with Daisy Chute who is a favourite of mine as Daisy kept me company with her live streams all the way through lock down, most charming, and talented artist who is so lovely she just makes your heart melt. Daisy tells us: “I am really enjoying the sunny weather and I am very much looking forward to summer and performing at gigs again in person”! In the last 12 months Daisy fairly quickly started doing live streams as a replacement for gigs and festivals that she was supposed to be at such as Glastonbury and the Cambridge festival. Daisy was doing online shows which she said was ‘better than nothing’ due to the pandemic. Daisy said: “through the online shows and livestreams etc she was able to connect with many people internationally which she said was ‘really lovely and enabled her to build more of a following and connect with fans on an international scale’ which she wouldn't have been able to-do on a tour.” Daisy said:  “during this pandemic, she tried to use the time as best as she could to connect with her fans through the livestreams”! Kate asked Daisy: “Have you missed live performances”? “Absolutely’ the live streams are kind of like live performances, but they don’t feel the same because you don’t have the same connection and it’s much more casual! I miss performing with my band as I have not been able to see them during this time so my livestreams have also been missing that element of energy and adrenaline when performing a set. I am a very social person and I really miss the atmosphere of being at a gig and having drinks with friends and getting back to being in gig – performing and watching.” Kate asked Daisy: “are you excited to showcase your track”? ‘ABSOLOUTELY yes!’ “I love what Jeeni are doing, and I love how supportive the team are to all the artists and I am very grateful for these opportunities to work with some amazing people. I think the showcases and the festivals are so important and they keep the artists going and keep them motivated and connected”! Daisy also overfunded on her Rocket fuel campaign which was amazing and if you want to find out more check out her page here: https://rocketfuelhq.com/daisy-chute Daisy was raising the funds to help make some new music for Daisy’s Singles Club. Daisy reaching her target a week early, which is amazing. But you can still get involved as Daisy has decided to do a “Stretch Goal” to see if she can get some further support to make a series of new videos and Daisy will have new things on offer until 31 March 2021.  You can still get involved by buying something, subscribing monthly or making a one-off contribution.   Here is a video telling you all about it. https://youtu.be/0j-defCFQvA Best of luck Daisy we know you will be a great success and you have 100% support from Team Jeeni.

11
Jun

One of the world’s top record executives has joined Team Jeeni

Heard of Roger Watson? You’ve certainly heard his work. Grammy Award record producer with 500 million record sales to his name (and the velvet voice of the Viagra ads!) Now Roger is lending his experience and knowledge to help a new generation of undiscovered music talent in the Jeeni project. Jeeni is a streamed music service based in Portsmouth, and the company is endorsed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Crowdboost programme. Listeners get to vote on who joins the next generation of stadium stars, and the young hopefuls are guided by experienced professionals. And they don’t come more experienced than Roger Watson. He was stage manager to The Beatles, and he went on to produce best-selling albums for superstars like Blondie and Tina Turner, as A&R Director of Chrysalis Records and Managing Director of Arista Records. Welcome aboard! Roger Watson (right) with Jeeni founder Mel Croucher