Music industry watch

Bands doing business their way

[ The usual applies -- too much work to do, too little time. But this time I've got one foot out the door to finally go on a real vacation, so there is extra stress in trying to finance our little jaunt to Barcelona. Thus, little time to do blogging, so I'll leave you with a couple of music links: ]

iTunes aside, Web is changing the music industry: The British band Marillion embraces the net and takes on a VC-like model to sponsor their new albums and a US tour:

In what is believed to be a Web first, Marillion has twice raised the money needed to record a studio album by convincing devoted fans to buy the album up front--in both cases, fans shelled out money a year before they could hear what they were buying.

The strategy has paid off. For the latest album "Marbles," the band has scored three singles in the European music charts. The last time Marillion cracked the Top 40 was in 1985, when it was signed to EMI, one of the world's largest music labels.

I've been saying for a long time that bands need to treat themselves like a start-up business and ensure that they are covering all their bases with marketing, sales, bus-dev as well as music creation. Marillion is doing just that by appealing to their fans and not starting a new venture unless the venture has secured backing. Of course all this is easier for a established band -- a new band would never be able to pull this off. Nonetheless, these types of music businesses give me hope for the future.

Along similar lines, the band Wilco succinctly states that "Music Is Not a Loaf of Bread":

A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.

Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator.

People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property.

I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic.

I was really disheartened when I heard musicians make the silly stealing a loaf of bread analogy. Thankfully Wilco gets it, and also shys away from the labels by making their music available for download and consequently selling boatloads of their hit album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. There is hope -- it's just going to take a while longer!

Posted by Mayhem at November 17, 2004 02:57 PM