Here’s a fun game… start off with the phrase “Music like…………..” then make up a word to follow and see if there’s an analogy that could be drawn from said word in relation to music.
According to Twitter, 23 days ago, I posted this tweet: “Imagine, if you could buy demo’s (work in progress) on iTunes, then upgrade like an application? + able to listen to previous versions????”.
So what if music worked like software? I’m a big fan of demo recordings, live recordings etc, really into that sort of stuff. Usually, you have to buy the singles to get your hands on these. The digital market has made it easier but it’s still not great. The idea struck me while my mac was going through an update… e.g. If you could subscribe to a community for an album for an artist, how would it work? Let’s say, you paid £15 what would that get you? Well first comes the recording. Bands will usually record a series of rough demo’s of tracks, perhaps about 25 of them, they’ll sit down with the label and even pluggers to decide which one’s to record, although companies now exist who are paid to decipher which tracks are going to be the most popular and those are duly recorded, this is the world in which we live. So what if your subscription entitled you to listen to all of these, you could comment, rate etc interact and communicate, which would create invaluable feedback/hype? Tracks for the album are then recorded which can be done a few times for some major record labels so more demo’s for the fans, more feedback for the artist & label, everyone’s happy.
As these tracks are improved upon, like software, you can update. But perhaps saturation is a problem here. The final versions are then released.
How can this be value added? Well after the final recording, give the community the stems (the individual parts that make up the track) to play with and remix. Music videos? give them away too. Sell tickets exclusively to the subscribers a week before they go on sale to the public.
Imogen Heap has been using Twitter and YouTube to broadcast updates about her new album, playing snippets of tracks, welcoming feedback. Consumers are getting used to more interaction, I’m not suggesting turn it into a democratic procedure, but there’s potential in getting your fan base involved from an early point.
I can see a LOT of pros and cons for the idea and rather than listing them at this stage, I’d like to hear what you love/hate about it?
RSS Reader
Really intelligent way of looking at it objectively, like the idea, would like to see something like this in practise. Another great blog post Anthony
It’s an interesting concept Anthony – and one I think could work well with huge artists ie Radiohead/NiN – whose fans are passionate, motivated and keen to spread word of mouth about their heros.
Coming from an indie label point of view though (and one which i think applies to lower level major label artists as well)is getting the buy in from fans of less ’super-hyped bands’.
While I want to own a single/ EP/ album of say… For arguments sake – Tellison – I’m not sure I, or the vast majority of their fans (im sure there would be a few who would mind), would want to own all the demos leading up to that.
The only way i personally could be persuaded to purchase is if i was getting physical, limited edition stuff through – that would send my ‘indie cool points’ through the roof
I guess it does mean you can get 2 or 3 waves of press aorund the release, and advocates already talking about it way pre-release – but there’s costs involved, and you’d have to make sure people continue to care….
In short – an interesting concept, and good post – but I’m not sure it would work for all x
lv Jack PoP
@Martin thank you
@Jack thanks for your comment, I do read your blog and have duly added it to my blogroll to the right
The idea would be to actually reduce costs due to an influx of consumer viral marketing and definitely not hit the press until the release is finalised as you would with any record.
Your point about it working more for established bands more than newer bands is of course right. But there are local bands I love and people who are still playing to a few people in pubs who have demos I love listening to, I believe that once you have the interest of a consumer, its a lot easier. It’s not really supposed to be a method to drastically help break an act, more like building a community, having some of the work do itself and perhaps even having a more commercially focused finished product.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Its definitely an interesting concept, but at a time where DRM is being struggled with and the majority of labels & artists arguably can’t wrap their heads around digital concepts in their most basic forms, I’d argue its something that would be near impossible to realise. If you were rebuilding the way music is consumed on a very fundamental level, you might be able to get something like this happening. However the fundamental shift that is required in technology, formats etc etc is so massive that it would only work with mass adoption.
Plus, as Jack says above, I suspect this would be something that would only work for established artists where people actually care to hear the demos etc. For others, it would struggle as people will not want to buy in.
Definitely an interesting concept though!
Hi Anthony,
This is indeed an interesting concept. We actually did something similar with Uniform Motion last year.
Every couple of weeks, the band recorded a new song, shot a live video in the recording studio and designed an interactive comic strip. The rough versions of the songs were uploaded to the website as streamable MP3’s, the videos were edited and posted to vimeo and embedded in the webpage, and the flash based comic strip was a fully integrated part of the site (our own development). So the fans could discover the album in several different ways, and watch it grow throughout the project.
At the end of the ’series’, the album was mixed and mastered and we just released a CD/DVD with a 54 page comic booklet. Within the next month or so, we’ll be releasing an iPhone app. (My message is probably making sense now!) The iTunes App store is the perfect place for your concept. Instead of downloading an album on iTunes, you download an app, which is updated every now and then. The app approach also gives you the possibility to hook in Youtube videos, and other content.
The only question is whether Apple would allow record labels to do this.
i’ll have the answer to that question pretty soon!
Cheers,
Andy
It sounds ace Andy, please do let us know how it goes…
Has anyone made up anymore “Music like……” concepts? Think I might start a Twitter game with it!
I think this is a good idea for new / development acts but not necessarily for more established artists.
As long as current marketing models prevail releasing works in progress is probably going to be perceived as diluting the impact of the finished release. I know some bands (The Raconteurs spring to mind, admittedly not the most forward thinking of bands) are very careful about playing unreleased material live for this very reason.
As you point out saturation could be a problem too.
Having said that the model is interesting. I know as a fan I’ll seek out different permutations of tracks I like – generally remixes rather than demos – and would be interested in a subscription service to both favourite artists and favourite remixers.
I see the old “Anthony Herron idea factory” has been working again.
I like this as a concept and I am all for more band/fan interaction of this kind, but agree with Nick’s point about it maybe diluting the final product.
But the stems/remix idea is what excites me more about this, it’s a brilliant way of getting fan interaction and I for one would like to see more of it around. There are a hell of a lot of so called “bedroom producers” around these days, albeit with varying degrees of skill, and sometimes a re-working of a well known or popular track is there chance to reach a bigger audience and to go onto bigger and better things.