New Music Price: It’s Up To You My Friend
Yesterday (Oct. 10), the ground shook violently at record companies around the world as a major artist, Radiohead, decided to release their new album, In Rainbows independently and with a new price model: Name Your Own Price
That’s right. You can order the album from their website and name your own price… whether you enter $0, $10, $100, or $1,000,000, you will receive an email with a download link to a zipped copy of the album.
Why did Radiohead do this? Well, two things are at play:
1st, Radiohead has not been quiet about their dislike for their past record label, EMI, as well as the music industry in general. Even to the point of not releasing music on iTunes. So there’s a little bit of “sticking it to the man” in the release.
2nd, the current trend of music (i.e., the songs themselves), is that they are “loss leaders” to help the artist establish a fanbase. Once the artist gains a following, the artist can sell other items, such as concert tickets and merchandise (T-Shirts, hats, underwear, lunchboxes, yada yada yada) and fan club services, such as access to exclusive content like song demos, behind the scenes information and documentaries, and the like. Some artists have experimented with subscription-based fees where instead of releasing an album every two years, they release songs on a monthly or quarterly basis.
So where does that leave the unknown indie artist and fans? Well, obviously fans will enjoy getting music for free (not like they weren’t doing that already through filesharing). Music that gets played on the radio has been “bad” for at least a generation, but “good” music has almost always found a way to get released and gain at least cult status. I’m thinking of bands like XTC, which write and create very intelligent pop rock music, but for the most part are relegated to cult status. If you were to ask Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding if they are rich, they would laugh in your face. They may have a comfortable existence, but they are not millionaires. In the 90s, they even got to the point of parking cars for a living while they recorded one of their albums… and this is a band that has sold millions of records. If the music is free, a band like XTC may not survive.
So good music will still get recorded and released via the Internet, but how will the fans find it if they need to wade through millions of “free” songs? Promotion is key. For my own release, the money from any CDs or downloads I sold went right back into the project in terms of marketing and promotion as well as shipping materials and postage for CD reviews. If I were to release the music for free, I would not be able to fund the promotion of this project or fund my next project. I would have to get a band together to start playing some shows to generate some cash for projects… Dude, we’re getting the band back together! ;-)
But seriously, the music industry is changing with both artists, record labels, and fans trying to figure out a way to make a living with their love of art.
So give me some feedback and ideas. If an indie artist were to give their songs away for free, how could they can build a fanbase and generate some revenue to live on?
