Griffin Paterson
Senior Editor
@GPCourant
At first, junior James Franzis created Anchored Music simply as a way to listen to cool music with his friends, but a business plan, Soundcloud, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter later, has turned into a flourishing wealth of popular music with thousands of viewers and hundreds of subscribers.
“The idea behind the company is to try and get artists’ great music heard by everyone no matter how big or small they are. I started a Soundcloud account, Toucan Music, awhile back to share music with my friends and from there it expanded far more than I could have ever imagined,” James said. “We expanded so much that we had to go back to the drawing board and that’s how we created Anchored.”
Founded December 13th, 2014, Anchored Music Blog is the next generation and optimized version of the original, Toucan Music. Across his online presence, a Soundcloud, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and website, his label has thousands of views a week. The basic business model is this; artists fill out a submission form to anchoredmusicblog.com and if James deems their work worthy, he reposts their song throughout his various media outlets.
However, going from hobby to business was not without its pitfalls. “It took a while, I went through some copyright difficulties in the beginning, but then managed to get it up and running and I now update it daily,” James said.
The name Anchored Music stems from a few of James’ interests. “I came up with the name anchored because I love the water and fishing and an anchor seemed like something that I could have a lot of fun making a cool logo out of,” James said. “My passion is music though, I hope that people will join me as I continue on my search for the songs that keep me interested.”
Songs posted by James have gotten thousands of views that augment recognition for his blog and for the artists he is posting for. One post, SNBRN – Raindrops ft. Kerli (Original Mix), has over 26,000 plays on YouTube and is not alone in its popularity.
Despite far reaching ambitions, James already has a strong fan base here at NCHS. “It’s the kind of music that frees me from the stresses of junior year,” junior Theo Crowley said. “It helps me get pumped up, whether I am working out, surfing, snowboarding, or getting in the mindset to play a tennis match.”
Anchored Music’s influence stretches across all grades as well. “Anchored Music is really cool because it’s hard to find good music nowadays to get a playlist together because there are just so many choices,” freshman Stephen Curiale said. “Everyday, Anchored posts music that I like in one place.”
As much as James does this for fun, in the end his goal is to make money. “We are a promotional entertainment company based off of our website mainly,” James said. “I have made money selling shirts in the store section of the website and I’m releasing Tom Swoon’s latest single with Ultra Records. As we have continually gotten bigger we have acquired a few songs that only we only have the rights to upload out of everyone in the world, including Tove Lo – Talking Body (Leeyou & Danceey remix), which has almost 20,000 hits on my Soundcloud account.”
In the end, all James wants is to reach a broader audience. “I expect this to get bigger and bigger. I get at least 50 to 70 new followers a month on my Soundcloud alone,” James said. “We would love a Facebook like, a follow on Soundcloud or a retweet on Twitter. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay up to date on all of our latest content as Anchored Music continues to grow.”
James works everyday to expand his online presence. “Everyday, anchoredmusicblog.com is updated and added to, in order to include the hottest new songs with great beats and most insane drops out there,” James said. “I want to make anchoredmusicblog.com bigger and expand its followers to more than just the U.S., I want to make it go worldwide and have it become a top notch blog.”
