The OurStage Community is full of fans of Tap Tap Revenge, an iPhone game that lets you test your musical and rhythmic skills against your favorite music, all while on the bus, or waiting for class to start, or during class or… doing just about anything on the go! And now, you can tap along to some of the best music found on OurStage. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find:
Tap Tap Revenge is only one game in a list of uber-successful iPhone applications from the developer, Tapulous. Only 3 weeks after launching the original game, they were boasting over 1 million users and grew to over 6 million in less than a year after that. They’ve launched special versions for NIN, Coldplay and Weezer and have over 160 artists listed in their Catalog ranging from the indies to the majors. Now, after launching the second version in March ‘09, they already have 2.7 million new people tapping away… that’s huge exposure for any independent artist! So how did all these great OurStage bands find themselves in the favor of such a popular mobile game? We caught up with Tapulous’ Tim O’Brien to find out.
As Tapulous puts it, Tim is “the guy who gets the songs,” and “is the Rosetta Stone of Tapulous, able to translate the tech talk into the grunts and screams the music world understands.” His deep background in the music industry from street team development to tour management has helped him give Tapulous the street cred it needs to stay constantly fresh and engaging in the ever-evolving music community. His past experiences in the music world also led him to develop a huge amount of respect for the bands and musicians that aren’t afraid of a little hard work. Those are the bands that find their way onto the iPhone screens of millions of music fans.
‘Bands choose their own fate,’ he says. Bands find Tim and pitch him with their story and music. He offers up top placement for the bands who are willing to work for it and the fruit of their labor is the millions of fans who will get, ‘turned on to new music in a really engaging environment. They will listen all the way through and many times over if they really like the song.’
90% of the game’s catalog is independent music and the company is looking for ways to continue in that direction by working with indie artists, labels and publishers (They are already pulling from the catalogs of INgrooves and OurStage partner, DashGo). Tim says he is even considering building a special indie track of the week, pushing one lucky band’s music to millions of inboxes and generating even more exposure. Speaking of the track of the week, if you don’t already have the game, be sure to download Tap Tap Revenge this week because the featured artist is long-time OurStage supporter, Matt Nathanson.
