Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies
I recently posted about discovering a wonderful band called Arizona. I found them while attending PopAsheville in January and I wrote – “I was invited to give the keynote speech this year. I spent an hour reminding the musicians in attendance that they are no longer in the music business, they are in the T-shirt business and they all seemed to agree. They also agreed that the music industry is not hurting, it’s the cd business that is in decline.” The whole post is here.
I am not being facetious when I say that bands are in the T-shirt business as I believe very strongly that as music slips down to zero in dollar value then artists must move quickly to find different ways to make money from their art. [The 'value' of music is based more than ever these days in emotion and much less in dollars.]
Those slides below are from my presentation. Its the part where musicians begin to squirm, especially the ones who haven’t grasped the notion that free really works. In another part of the presentation I discuss the idea of increasing CD and T-shirt sales at shows by never having prices posted for each item at the point of sale or “merch” table. My thinking here is that those fans that really like the band and are leaning towards buying will ask what the price of a CD is. And the answer should be “how much do you want to pay?” I guarantee that the answer will be somewhat along these lines – “I only have $4,” “I’d like to give you $10,” “You guys were great, here’s $20,” “I have no money.” You should sell your CD at those prices to all of those folks and give one to the guy with no money. They will never forget the experience they had and they will tell their friends that you are the coolest band on earth for doing that.
I know you think I’m crazy, yet one of the bands who attended the conference and heard me speak gave it a try at there next show. They are called Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies – and it worked – see below. And for you doubters out there I’m sure if you click through that link to the band’s MySpace you can message them directly.
From: amanda.brooks@xxxxxxxxx [Edited of course]
Subject: Re: Hi Amanda
Date: February 9, 2009 7:37:52 AM PST
To: daveallen [at] pampelmoose.com
Hi Dave!!!
This weekend we played our first show since popAsheville and were able to test out your merch idea of not putting prices on anything. I am writing to tell you that it totally works. People were giving us $10 and $20 for the 5 song EP we usually sell for $5. We just had a sign that said “Name yr. own price!” and people totally rocked because they actually wanted to give us more. You were right! I will never price our stuff again!!!
Amanda
I think thats a great idea when you are selling things face to face. The chances of someone coming up to the table and just taking a CD and not paying for it decreases dramatically when they have to be seen doing it. They also will want to pay more in front of their favorite artist because it makes them stand out in the artists eyes, getting noticed and appreciated by people they look up to and respect, Put it into an online setting, eliminating any reaction good or bad, then you will probably have more people taking it for free…but thats probably because they might not be very big fans of the musician and are most likely just wanting to add to their music collection. This might be going too far but for a fan to pay 20 bucks for a 5 song EP either in person or online, might warrant a special thanks such as a signed poster or tickets to a show or even a collective invite to a private show for the most finacially supportive fans.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:21 pmI agree for the most part but I’m not certain about people not wanting an “album”. Hybrid Economy is all the rage these days as the business model for websites and it might be possible to apply the same concept to sales of recorded music. CD Forge for example had a 50% increase in vinyl sales last year and now my company is working on a new project for them to enable “mp3 cards” inserted in each record for downloadable mp3′s. The cool thing about vinyl of course is the large format artwork. It’s pretty much the same reason we buy t-shirts. We want to support the people making the music we love and we also love collecting things and showing off our collections. So this might actually work!
February 10th, 2009 at 6:56 pm[...] albums, singles, and special editions has plummeted, but Gang of Four bassist and new media blogger Dave Allen has news for you. When it comes to great music, free is the new [...]
February 11th, 2009 at 8:20 amThat’s great, Dave. You keep on working to devalue my art and my product. I’ll keep on insisting you are completely full of shit. Music lovers not only want physical albums from their favorite bands, they’re willing to pay for them. That has always been true and it will always be true. Your biggest fallacy is that you’re lumping the art in with the pop. Pop has never been worth anything, which is why record companies are failing left and right. It has nothing to do with the existence of the internet and everything to do with the fact that most of the product that was being pushed on us was shit. The market has spoken — and it doesn’t want another Aerosmith hits collection. It wants real product from real musical talent and it will pay for it. You’ll see.
February 11th, 2009 at 3:49 pm@Mike,
February 11th, 2009 at 4:23 pmYour comment doesn’t make sense. I post about how Amanda from Violet Vector made MORE MONEY by selling her merchandise at prices that her fans wanted to pay, in one instance $20 FOR A CD SHE WAS SELLING FOR $5 and you say I’m full of shit!!!??? Did you just read the post title or did you read the whole fucking thing?
I bother to write these posts everyday so that musicians can be informed about their choices given that the record industry fucked everything up and is running around like a headless chicken.I turn up at my own expense to speak at conferences like SFMusicTech, GrammyMusicTech, SXSW [again this year] and the above mentioned PopAshville to help share advice to musicians on how to stay afloat in a very fucked up business, and you say I am “completely full of shit”.. Yes music lovers want physical albums that’s why they bought them at Amanda’s gig, the point of my post – What is your point?
When I mention in my presentation that the album is no longer the format of choice and that consumers have spoken with their dollars by buying single tracks from iTunes for instance, then I say the organizing principal, ie. 12 songs on a shiny plastic disc is not what they want. You can deny this as long as you want but it’s not going to change any time soon.
And what exactly is wrong with pop music? I happen to think there is still amazing pop music out there. You undermine your own argument when you rail against pop music. Kanye West still sells CDs by the bucket load, what’s wrong with that? And vinyl records have found a niche amongst a sub set of music lovers too. Pop music is art too so don’t be a snob about it.
All I’m saying very simply is that the CD business is in trouble but there is nothing wrong at all with the music industry – it’s doing fine. I’m really happy to hear that Amanda made more money following a small bit of advice from me. And I’m not the only one to offer the idea of not putting a price to a CD – you should Google Terry McBride of Nettwerk, he has given the same advice to his artists and they have had great success with it.
What are you doing to help out struggling musicians?
im out with ben taylor right now. I’ll suggest this and report back!
hope you’re well. -dom.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:48 pmHey Dom,
February 11th, 2009 at 4:56 pmFeedback from the Ben Taylor tour would be great. If it works it would make a great case study….have fun out there. Remember, really let them pay what they want and see how it averages out..
@Dave, You have repeatedly suggested that musicians give their music away for free and you’ve even gone so far as to suggest that musicians shouldn’t even be in the music business, that they should be in the t-shirt business. And you’re making the same mistakes as always by 1.) assuming you know what ‘consumers’ want and 2.) lumping all music consumers together and making overly broad (and misguided and incorrect to boot!) statements about them. You haven’t addressed the points in my post, which I won’t bother reiterating. You /are/ helping to devalue music and therefore you are my enemy. What am I doing about it? I’m continuing to make the best art I can and I will not give it away, nor will I go into the t-shirt business. Will my art fail? Only the market can decide that, not some loud-mouth blogger. You’re entitled to your fanciful opinions and I’m entitled to call bullshit.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:15 pmDave, I for one do not think you are full of shit. Hah hah! You are definitely on to something. But what do you think about the fact that CD Forge sold 50% more vinyl last year? I think the difference is in selling music online versus in person. Online obviously the single track method is working, but in person when you’re in the heat of the moment loving that band and then you actually get to meet them after they get off stage, you buy the record. At least I assume Violet Vector only has the one 5-song EP in their discography so far, but if it had 10 or 12 songs or whatever, it would still sell the same way. The implication for bands is that they must tour if they want to sell lots of records, but for most bands that’s always been true anyways.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:26 pmDave – I didn’t actually speak to you about this in Portland, but after meeting in Asheville we actually decided to try this on a bunch of dates (when not lazy, and we weren’t too lazy!) our west coast tour (we are 2 days away from finishing around a month of playing every night with no breaks).
We determined that the optimal way to price this stuff is to announce the ‘name your own price’ thing towards the end of the show (I tried to take the wince-inducing capitalist flavor out by performing a song about why our t-shirts are so beautiful). Then you can post a suggested range – $8-12 for an LP for example, or “well a t-shirt is around $15 so….” – there were a couple times we took $8 for a t-shirt because the person seemed cool and that’s genuinely all their budget would allow. A good amount of times, this “name your own price” technique, coupled with a ‘suggested donation’ yielded generosity on the part of the concert goer- we were often given $10 for our EP (which we sell for $5) or around $20 for a t-shirt. More often, we sold them for $14 and probably got sales that otherwise would have slipped away.
Another thing we found really helped was setting up a credit card station, we definitely snagged a lot of sales from folks who just didn’t have cash on them and often times passed by the headliner’s merch booth because they weren’t able to process credit cards. Also, more often than not the people using credit cards would pay the standard price or above.
I can say this though, we sold a very good deal of t-shirts, but this was far outpaced by physical albums. People who had the albums from iTunes were buying the physical records – at the end of the day, there are a ton of people who still value music and physical CDs as a sort of “momento,” and just as live music isn’t going away, neither are concert goers with a CD player (as far as I can tell). Until people have USB ports in their cars as standard stereo equipment, I think there will always be a market for people who want something the band can sign (without fuckin’ up their style if they wanna rock an AZ shirt) and that they can then slip into their car and immediately start digging into the world of something they just discovered.
We are hoping to try some much cooler stuff next time in addition to a more extensive checking out of the name your own price experiment. We have an idea for a sort of 21st century physical product to sell at shows, while we’re purging our CD stock and hopefully we can post here and let you know how it goes!
February 11th, 2009 at 6:39 pm@Mike, it’s simple. The CD business is in decline and you know it. I don’t “assume” to know what music lovers want – I read research and data and then have an opinion. If I didn’t do research and speak with some passion on subjects why on earth would I ever be invited year over year to speak on panels? I can send you 100′s of research papers dating back to 1998 when I was at EMusic that document the decline of the music business.
Musicians make more money selling T-shirts than selling CDs. The T-shirt margins are greater, it’s that simple. I can categorically state that my band Gang of Four, made more money in the 3 years on the road from T-shirts than selling CDs at shows. My point that I think you’re missing, is that musicians, myself included, want to make music that is appreciated by as many people as possible. The problem is that getting that music into peoples hands on CD is becoming harder and harder. Therefore I argue that musicians need to broaden their income streams. Hence the T-shirts idea.
Meanwhile, if you are leaning toward the “music as art” theme then I argue that “all music is art” just as all art is political. To say otherwise is rubbish. You never replied to my Kanye example – I reviewed 808s very favorably as I consider it a great work of art. Do you dismiss Kanye as non-art because he’s a pop musician?
You say I didn’t address your points, so I will now try -
Point 1. “You keep on working to devalue my art and my product.” – I do not. I have never heard your art or your product as you call it. I presume you are generalizing about music and if so the answer’s the same. I do not “work to devalue” anything. I work to help musicians make a living actually. As a Board Member for the Grammys that would make sense right?
Point 2. “Music lovers not only want physical albums from their favorite bands, they’re willing to pay for them.” – I agree. Not only will they buy music in CD format they’ll also buy it as digital files. What they want to do most of all, STUDIES HAVE SHOWN, is that they want to put the money directly into the hands of the artist not a label.
Point 3. “Pop has never been worth anything” – I’ll let Lily Allen, Likke Li, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kanye, Beyoncé etc fans answer that one. I love pop music.
Point 4. It is “everything to do with the fact that most of the product that was being pushed on us was shit.” – I agree.
Point 5. – “It wants real product from real musical talent and it will pay for it.” – I agree.
Point 6. – “I’ll keep on insisting you are completely full of shit.” – That’s fine by me but don’t you think it’s cowardly to anonymously attack me here? What’s your band or album? Where do we hear it?
I have responded to your points so please respond to mine… Thanks.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:46 pm@Mike
PS – A question. Is a song on iTunes priced at .99 cents its true value? How about Andrew Bird’s new album being available on Amazon last week for $1.99 or Elvis Costello’s debut album at $1.99, is that ok with you? Would you rather that people only bought CDs at $12.99?
February 11th, 2009 at 6:49 pm@Ben, Amen! The message here is Test and Analyze, as I said in Asheville. Different things will work for different artists. I look forward to hearing back from Dominic on the Ben Taylor tour to see how their experiment goes too…
February 11th, 2009 at 6:56 pmIn an IPod world the value of CD is diminished significantly as it creates unnecessary steps to getting it into Pod and takes up space.mp3 files are far to easy to dl. This doesn’t have anything to do with the real value of the music contained just it’s artifact. Tshirts are still wearable and people need clothing and feel a special connection when friends ask about them. People should sell whatever they can to make a living and play what is in their hearts. Many people will also pay for mp3 files if they feel the artist they are listening to. No dog in the race here just my 2 cents.
February 11th, 2009 at 7:20 pmI agree to some extent. I think it’s more like bands are now in the marketing business. Different models work for some & not others, and vice versa. However, i will never be convinced of the completely free model. It’s just mass marketing & it will eventually run out of steam. But giving away a taste or two for free to sell your music & merch is a completely different story. Bands are much better off with a though-out & creative marketing plan.
Anyway…that’s my 2 cents. :)
February 11th, 2009 at 7:49 pmI am a music fan. I have a policy of only buying cds direct from artists and buying the things that are impossible to buy direct from a few select record stores.
I love free music. I have been to a ton of shows and bought merch from and talked to a ton of way cool musicians for a few moments and even have made a few friends along the way. That would have never happened if I would have had to pay to see if I even liked the band in the first place. I would have never found any of the music I listen to if I had to look to the mainstream media.
Free music gets more ears on your music. If you are good, people will pay you. If you aren’t good, you can always blame it on the devaluation of music.
I think anonymous Mike might be a troll that hits every blog with suggestions of free music. Or maybe it’s a web sherrif propaganda campaign.
February 11th, 2009 at 7:51 pmI think you are absolutely spot on here.
I cannot agree more with what you are saying. Your research on what the fans want is exactly right.
Plus, no-one likes DRM.
February 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pmNow I’m a troll. Now I’ve been called everything. People tend to listen to people who talk the loudest and Dave is a much louder talker than I. I’m a simple indie musician, producer, engineer and music lover. I’ve been practicing this for 20 years and I have attained skills and craft during that time that are highly evolved and rare. My music is available wherever Touch and Go records are sold. I do not need to puff up my own ego by bragging about my various appearances and memberships. My work speaks for itself. It’s worth something. You get a mid-fi sample track or two on some cheesy blog that you can download if you like, but how much does that really mean to you, the music consuming public? Absolutely nothing. It’s taking up a little bit of hard drive space and when your computer gives up the ghost, it vanishes into thin air. Is that really what my art form has come to? You folks can talk about free music all you want, but forgive me for not playing along. You see, the vast majority of the music-buying public hasn’t got a clue, and the message they’re getting from people like Dave is this: go ahead and download the music, because not even the artists who created it believe it’s worth anything.
February 11th, 2009 at 9:50 pmgood grief! having read Dave’s stuff for some time now, there’s a common thematic strand: he gives advice and opinion in the hope it will HELP musicians/artists/producers/whatever to keep on keepin’ on in a time where changing technologies have changed traditional exchanges. nobody has to do exactly as he says, the same as they don’t have to buy that aerosmith disc mike mentioned earlier. i for one appreciate his ideas.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:22 pmand, um, doesn’t “pop music” refer to most music “invented” post 1950s in the broadest general sense? all those genre divisions were perhaps part of that old-style music biz sales strategy which gave us those unwanted aerosmith albums.
I think the message in this post is to bands. The message is “how about you try out method b”. I don’t really see a call out to the general public to go steal all the music you want or an attempt to define the price of music in terms of money per unit.
I apologize for the troll remark, but every blog that mentions the “totally wacky business model that is so crazy it just might work” seems to have a comment from a musician who says the same thing about devaluement while bands are doing just fine booking their own tours because the music speaks for them.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:38 pmwe are trying this tomorrow night in denver at the bluebird. will report back with results!
February 12th, 2009 at 12:08 amMike – from my experience even as a young touring act, the die hard ‘gotta own/support it’ crowd of listener is never going to fully burn out. People want albums, they want t-shirts, they want good stuff – and I agree with Erik’s notion that the band becomes a kind of boutique marketing company. If I had my druthers, we would have a new product line for each season, music and merch alike and everything would be limited edition. The ‘gotta have it’ old school listener crowd (and many young kids understand this and join up to refresh this kind of listener all the time) is awesome, and you actually *can’t* give music away at a show. I’ve tried! I always end up getting something for it- whether it be a true expression of human gratitude and friendship, or a few bucks towards recouping the costs of our record. As long as a band can carve a touring niche where their performances are in demand but appropriately scarce in supply, physical product can be moved. Especially if you try really really hard not to suck balls on stage.
But there is a real on-the-ground change that many up and coming bands must face-
the mp3 savvy listener is here to stay, it’s a huge group and growing and they are ravenous, like zombies hungwy for bwains. The web has a literally infinite supply of free music, and so ultimately, this is the most ‘empowered’ listenership rock music has ever seen imho. Just think about it. They don’t have to work at all in order to be up to date on the bloodiest edge of modern music, and so they don’t need to go to a show or even listen to a whole f’n record in order to talk like they are zen experts on the art of listening to and/or making music.
But then there are guys like Jesse from this thread, who are the sort of people with ears AZ would like to get in front of (although for all I know he would think we were shit), and the only way to do that is to make our music available for download. Plain and simple. The more iPods we are on, the better. And really, isn’t that kind of cool? We just recorded some crap for Daytrotter today (that was awesome) – it hasn’t been posted but they pretty much said “yeah, we’ll post whatever you want, you can make it available to download or not, most people at least let one get downloaded” – we’re going to allow them to all be downloaded, not because we don’t think there is value to it, but because I want as many people who see that Daytrotter page to download our stuff and remember it. Sure maybe in the old days there would be a way to milk a one off recording like that a little harder, for a little more, but say 500 people download that stuff – we don’t usually gig for 500 people every night. So for one day (hell, one morning)’s worth of work, we got to cyber-busk for maybe a few thousand people, and maybe 500 people will have cared enough to download that stuff. Again… this is all assuming that 500 people will download our daytrotter shit, and not 17 people, which would depress me. haha –
so ‘giving away’ music is really basically cyber busking. I don’t know where you live Mike, but I’m from NYC and I’ve seen a lot of fucking awful buskers in the subways. Sometimes, these people who just suck pure ass at music are getting their money that way. But whenever there’s someone playing something really nasty, something unusual, that demands attention, I see those artists getting paid. Some tip $10 and up just in appreciation for the moment, not taking a CD or anything. Putting your stuff out there for free on the internet is the same thing, it’s manning up, paying your $4 for an MTA card (erm… a lot more to actually try to be a touring rock band), and sweating your ass off for several hours playing your crap with no guarantee that anyone will listen let alone throw you a nickel. The only difference is, unlike a live busker, we can’t make eye contact with the people who mindlessly download stuff like a porn-addict clicking endlessly through a labyrinthine smut-cave. We can’t see them throw the tip in the guitar case, and surely that factors into the bottom line, but I think it’d be very cynical to think they aren’t tipping just because we can’t cleanly calculate “x number of exposures on pimptacular blog = z number of iTunes downloads.”
That would be a nice formula to have however :D
Sorry for the rant Dave. I’m bored. No gig tonite. Go see “Taken” with liam neeson, it rules.
February 12th, 2009 at 12:37 amI’m in agreement that this “set your own price” scheme is more appropriate for live face-to-face interaction sales…the more intermediaries there are in between the artist and the fan, the less likely they are going to be to pay any sort of premium–for physical products or otherwise. The economy going tits up is only going to exacerbate this as people try to maximize their value. How about giving away download codes to digital music with purchase of a tshirt to drive sales of merch?
I agree the plastic disc industry is going away. I should mention that I am format agnostic…The music is what matters to me, not the delivery system. I don’t fetishize vinyl, though I have a ton of it. I also have a ton of CD’s plus about 45,000 tracks stored digitally. Frankly, since having it on my iPod or iTunes library makes it much more likely that I’ll listen to it–economists would probably describe me as placing a “higher utility value” on them. So, paradoxically, I value the digital copy MORE than the physical disc. Based on industry trends, I don’t think I am an outlier.
February 12th, 2009 at 12:38 amMichael Gerald, from Killdozer….is that you?
February 12th, 2009 at 7:43 amdave, this idea sounds amazing – i’m gonna suggest it to my band for our next couple shows, and i’ll let you know how it goes. this is the first thing i’ve ever read about “marketing your music” that’s ever struck me as something that would work on ME. what you said about the music industry becoming the t-shirt industry really struck me as true. also, a perfect example of this that i can’t believe no one has mentioned (or if they did, i missed it) was radiohead’s initial online release of “in rainbows” – i’m not sure about any exact numbers, but i remember reading that there was a good range of prices paid, from people who bought the album for $80 to those who opted to pay just a dollar, or nothing. obviously, radiohead is already in a place where that sort of thing is not really a RISK for them, but it certainly excited people, and showed that there are people out there WILLING to pay for music.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:22 amas to the doubters and haters of this idea, i believe you’re missing the point. the point is not that your music is worthless – it’s that getting your music OUT THERE is more important than making some amount of money for it that YOU think you deserve.speaking for myself, i’ve gotten a lot of music for free over the past few years, but when i discover an artist i’m excited about, even if i haven’t paid for their album, i’m still spreading the word about them to everyone i know, and i’ll be at their show when they come to town, and i’ll buy their next album for sure. and it’s all because i HEARD THEIR MUSIC, something that would never have happened if i just came across their cd in best buy or whatever.
anyway, thanks for the great article – i’m excited to try this stuff out!
ps – i agree that pop music is a larger, general term for modern non-jazz/classical music – in a sense, grizzly bear and animal collective are pop, as are rhianna and fall out boy. i believe it was duke ellington that said “there are only two types of music – good music and bad music.”
@Mike,
I owe you an apology and I’m going to man up and give you one. I don’t respond too well to being called “full of shit” or a “loud mouther blogger” so I now notice that my response to you was a bit heavy-handed. As the writer and moderator of this blog it’s my job to keep things civil and I went over that line. For that I apologize as you are entitled to your opinion as am I and I respect you for that.
Best, Dave.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:43 am@Ben,
Let’s write a book together!
February 12th, 2009 at 8:43 amHey Dave,
Really interesting post. Speaking as a non-musician who can be obsessive (you’re shocked, I know :) about my favorite bands, I think this would definitely work. I’ve become friends with a fair number of musicians who would give me CD’s (and have) but I prefer to pay for them when I can, despite being a broke college student who hasn’t worked in three years. In the meantime, what I do have is a loud mouth and a passion for good music, so I pimp as hard as I can to spread the word and I dare say I’ve converted more than a few folks over the years.
@Mike Ever heard of respectful disagreement? Try it sometime, I think people might take you more seriously. It was nice of Dave to man-up and give you the apology you owe him.
February 12th, 2009 at 10:38 amWhat are your thoughts for artists that can’t tour? Is it on a different thread that you’ve already done? My “Altered States” CD is a producer-as-artist project featuring a wide variety of vocalists like Pete Yorn, Rachael Yamagata, Inara George from the Bird and the Bee and Paul Buchanan of the Blue Nile. It’s gotten a lot of good press and a lot of radio play, but I can’t do a tour since all of the artists have their own careers. Even a one-off would be complicated.
February 12th, 2009 at 11:36 am“Why should I give my music away?”
“Because that is what fans want.”
I’ll use that logic on my plumber.
“Why should I fix your toilet for free?”
“Because it is what I want.”
- fin –
Some people seem to have a narrow definition of ‘musician’. Musicians are rock bands that play live shows in clubs. Sometimes they record their songs, but recorded music is merely a promotional tool to get people to come to their gigs, therefore they should be free.
Even in the context stated above, I reject the notion that recorded music has no value. However, the main problem is that the narrow definition of what constitutes a musician gets applied to all forms of recorded music – most problematically, types of recorded music that can’t be performed live. If all recorded music is free, and all income should be derived from live performance, then where does that leave music that has no live analog? Where does Sgt. Pepper’s or Switched-On Bach fit into this model?
The fact of the matter is Recorded Music and Live Music are separate art forms. They’re lumped together in our minds for many reasons, but for people who push the idea that recorded music should be free, it is convenient to exclude all other types of musical expression that don’t fit into their new world order business model, (which, incidentally, benefits them the most) Will we soon justify torrenting movies for free because they’re simply promotional material to drive awareness of actors, who should derive all their income from performing in stage plays?
Within the set of music that can be performed live, there is a much smaller subset of music with venues available that cater to the genre. There aren’t exactly a ton of opportunities for live experimental music concerts, and when they happen, the musicians are not coming home with a wad of cash.
What about musicians who don’t live near an urban center where there are venues for original, live music? What about consumers under the age of 18 who can’t go to clubs? What about composers who write and don’t perform?
In other words, some people want to define all music as something that can be performed at a club, in front of an audience of 18-30 year olds. Preferably with guitars and drums. And all musicians should make a living selling t-shirts.
I believe recorded music has value. It simply isn’t practical to hire a band to follow you around in your car, walking down the street or while you work out. How would you feel if you lost all the music on your iPod and couldn’t get it back? Isn’t it worth something?
February 12th, 2009 at 12:37 pmI agree with a lot of what you say. In my band we do this and it averages out, though we probably give away more than we ever sell. That’s just the way it is.
As a fan though – T-shirts at shows are way overpriced most of the time. I’m not paying $15 for a $4 shirt unless they are one of my most favorite bands, though I might pay $10 more often. I’ve been to shows at big venues where shirts are $25 and up. I’ve got over 1000 cds, but I’ve bought maybe 50 band t-shirts over the years. And I can think back to so many of my favorite bands when I’ve gone to their shows and not bought their t-shirts. What’s worse, it feels like t-shirt prices have gone higher and higher, and bands can point to the fact they can’t get a buck for their cds as reason to jack up t-shirt prices.
February 12th, 2009 at 1:08 pm@stretta
If your plumber was offering his services for free if you bought a cool t-shirt would you go for it?
I would.
In response to: “What about musicians who don’t live near an urban center where there are venues for original, live music? What about consumers under the age of 18 who can’t go to clubs? What about composers who write and don’t perform?â€
This strategy can be applied to the web and taken out of the venue context. Radiohead and NIN have already proven that the “pay what you think the music’s worth†can work.
I would also argue that if more bands used the “name your price†model more people would be willing to take a chance on listening to new artists. I’m not a fan of avant guard music but I might take a chance on listening to something if the tracks were free (or I could name my price). And hey, if I loved it I might even travel to go see a live performance and buy a t-shirt.
February 12th, 2009 at 2:52 pm[...] How bands can make more money by not putting a price on a CD Post from pampelmoose.com. [...]
February 12th, 2009 at 3:03 pm@Robin,
February 12th, 2009 at 3:25 pmNot touring means one less arrow in the quiver unfortunately. I would suggest being as pro-active online as you can be – a free MP3, home made video, Podcast of your music maybe with interviews of all those cool guests, a T-shirt that comes with the album as a download….etc.
Giving away our album for free was the best business choice we’ve made. Despite the fact we give away digital copies for free, we still sell more physical copies of the record than t-shirts every live show.
Free is freeing.
February 12th, 2009 at 4:46 pmThought-provoking post. I’ve done the “name your price” thing before, with varied, mostly positive results.
Too often I think developing bands and artists are too fixated on extracting what they think is a “fair” amount of money from what are essentially strangers. They should be thinking about growth — listeners, fans, connections. Giving away something for free can certainly grow your listener base. This is extremely valuable over the lifetime of a project — there’s an emotional connection that doesn’t need to be gated by a fixed price tag.
Frankly there is so much competition for listeners out there, I don’t see the value in adhering to the old $15-per-CD model if it means shutting out potential fans.
February 12th, 2009 at 5:27 pmthanks Dave. i’ve got lots of online fans based on myself and all the featured artists on my stuff, and i’ll continue that. i’ve got a bunch of art college students working on a video for my version of “2000 Light Years From Home” sung by Rachael Yamagata, which has gotten the most radio play outside of LA. that should be beyond your standard Youtube presentation. I gave away for free my version of Bill Withers’ “Use Me”, sung by Pete Yorn with the Mexican band Kinky backing him up…….it had already been bootlegged before the CD was released anyway. I’ve also had interviews on XMRadio and KCRW chose my version of “The Last Waltz/Such a Night” as it’s iTunes “Song of the Day” giveaway while i was on their top 20 artists played for many weeks. great press as well, ranging from HITS magazine over to online reviews and tech mags like MIX.
there are a lot of artists that would die for this attention. sales?? modest.
It’s an interesting time and i’m real glad you’re trying to help people. There’s a lot to be said for what Stretta’s thoughts are above as well, and i definitely have to deal with this issue. No matter what my beliefs as far as “what is right”, it’s something that may not see change at least in the near future. There’s a TON of issues regarding copyright and distribution that are going to be fought over for quite awhile, and not just in music. The web has opened a lot of doors. But it’s kind of funny that i’m now quite friendly with a LOT of fans that share rather than buy. it’s just the way it is right now. if you, or anyone that posts here has got any new ideas, i’m gonna visit this space more often and keep “listening”. there don’t really seem to be any at the moment, but it won’t stop the creative process.
February 12th, 2009 at 7:56 pmThanks Dave for all you do. I also believe that NYOP methods work and we are in the very early stages of this phenomenon.
One issue I’ve been grappling with as a songwriter and technology expert is the ever present digital divide. Plain and simple, there are millions of people between the ages 35-65 that can’t even spell mp3, much less figure out how to find and download one. Most of these people rely on their kids to load their iPods, if they have one. And they load it up with music from the 60′s-80′s. I am 40 years old and most (+80%) of my friends and family still listen to the music they grew up on. They continue to spend their money on trusted “brands” like U2 and Bon Jovi.
That said – I think we are entering into the “age of discovery” as it relates to the music business. As this group bridges the divide and figures out how to use the Internet, artists old and new will have a much more viable means to spread their music through the methods you discuss.
My proof is the fact that many people who I have helped figure out how to point and click are on Facebook. One year ago they were clueless and scared of the computer and now they are connecting with elementary school friends.
The next challenge will be to get them off the couch and out to a show.
February 13th, 2009 at 6:46 amI found your blog through music think tank and I am now a fan thanks David. Your ideas sound like Captain Obvious ideas however some of us out here me included need to hear this.For where I am at in my “music career†this sounds like a no brainer idea that I definitely will try.I am a part time musician as disgusting as that may sound but that is the truth.
February 13th, 2009 at 7:07 amI hold a day job, I give guitar lessons after work and I gig. O and I try to spend time with my wife and kid HA! Anyway I spent a boat load of money on an EP for a name guy to mix my CD.
Had a big push when I had the record release. Sold actually more then I expected however I still have 2 boxes full of Cds sitting idle in my basement and half a box of T-shirts. The product is not going to move it self. I already know I took a loss when I shelled out the money so this wouldn’t bother me at all to have potential new fans name a price. At this point in the game the goal is GET THE CD OUT. Share.I constantly ask myself why do I keep doing this? I do it cause I am totally stoked that someone actually is listening to my music more then once. After reading all of these posts I get the feeling a lot of artists big and small forget what its like to be a fan. I know I have a huge ego just look at the size of my cranium however I am putting myself in check. Anyway have a great weekend! I’ll see you out there
We are in total agreement with you. Every musician that is serious about music being their only job should print this blog & post it where they can read it each day. Technology is reshaping the music business as it’s never been & it’s evolving each day, because fans have taken control albeit legally or not. Artist that are serious about making money, should listen to what their fans are asking for & then deliver that product to them.
—End
February 13th, 2009 at 9:57 amA few thoughts: I think, until the dust settles, there are no bad ideas. There are several economies operating at the moment. I don’t think a male singer/songwriter can be in the T-shirt business. A band or a female singer/songwriter, maybe. I don’t think anyone would want to wear a shirt with my name on it. When I was touring last year, selling CDs helped to keep me afloat. Selling 10 a night payed for my hotels. I do agree that the perceived value of music these days is not measured in money. Another way to say it is the perceived value is zero. I remember freaking out many years ago when my car was broken into and my CDs stolen including a disc of mixdowns. These days I would just hope the thief had a music blog and liked my stuff. (It would be my iPod now. My car doesn’t even have a CD player.) I’m not in the CD business anymore, for sure. I say I’m in the awareness business. Everything I do is about raising awareness of my brand. It helps licensing opportunities and, at some point, maybe a partnership with some sort of record company. CDs are like business cards.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:04 pmMy good friend Dominic who is out on the road with Ben Taylor tried the “method” and reports back – “Did over $1,200. More than double our usual.. Will get the average price per disc and comment tomorrow!”
February 13th, 2009 at 9:08 pmHey Dave,
There are some very thought provoking ideas here… I come to this discussion from the side of an independent label. As a startup there has been a decent amount of capital put into our first release and that often causes me to look at our bottom line… “will we be able to pay the bills and make more music?” I think that is the real goal of most musicians or indie label… do what they love and pay the bills with it. This idea of pay what you want has been enticing to me for quite some time… but I think this discussion has pushed me over the edge. If I look at it logically… how much money would I dump into a marketing budget to entice people to pay retail for an artist they probably have not heard of yet? A lot… but what would happen if people were able to check out the music and buy it for as little or as much as they wanted? If I look at using this model with sales of the digital album as an experiment I anticipate that I will have many more people who get the music than if they had to purchase at retail. I may get less $ per person… some paying nothing at all… but 10000 people paying $1 on average is better than 1000 people paying $10 on average… because even though the $ income is the same… the amount of people listening, requesting from radio stations, showing friends, booking shows, writing about it in their blogs, etc is 10 fold… and not something which we could have paid for… look at it like a marketing budget and suddenly breaking a new artist this way seems like a no brainer. We are going to test the idea with our online sales of our artists album for a period of time and see what the results are. We’ll look at the data and see if it seemed effective…. and effectiveness is not based solely on $ earned but on traffic to the site, email lists generated, as well as how many more people are excited to hear the music and share it with their friends… that results in more bookings more buzz etc. We’ll let you know how it turns out.
February 14th, 2009 at 4:21 pmWe tried this experiment with Ben Taylor at his show Friday night at the bluebird Theater in Denver.
Ben made a very articulate announcement from stage stating that due to the economy etc..we’ve decided to let people take his music home at a price of their choice. Also mentioning that the suggested retail price was $15..
We took in well over $1k in CD sales, double what we would on an average night. We normally sell 3 Full Lengths at $15 each and an EP at $5.
We sold a total of 84 CD’s averaging almost $12 per CD!
Last night we were in Jackson Hole, the trend continued, proving another good night. Where we sold 48 CD’s and averaged almost $11 a CD.
We are moving more product than we normally would and in average making more than what our CD were to sell on iTunes or a record store.
Tonight we are in Boise, plan to continue the ‘name your price for cd’s’ and if Denver is an indication, we should reach the 1,500 mark tonight.
I will keep reporting how we are doing nightly, certainly thus far it’s working in our favor. Especially setting some ‘ground rules’ for the consumer and not taking less than cost…yet instilling the mind set that this is a win win for both fan and artist.
February 15th, 2009 at 4:47 pm[...] from a presentation that I often use when I speak at music conferences. I wrote a post entitled ‘How Bands Can Make More Money By Not Putting a Price on a CD’. Of the 44 resulting comments the majority of musicians responding to my post were in agreement, [...]
February 15th, 2009 at 6:17 pmha. “MIKE” is a kook. He’s in denial and has very little grounds to base his opinions on. He would have been correct in 1993.
Dave-Good work, there’s more artists listening and applying your methods than you know. Keep it up, my friend.
Marc B.
February 19th, 2009 at 2:53 pmHello,
I like your way of arguing. You refer to some studies in your keynotes. Can you tell what studiers these are? Wolud like to check them out.
Thanks.
Best regards,
February 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 amMattias
I found everyone’s comments very interesting. I’ve played music for a long time, but I’ve only just started writing songs and getting into recording. I’d like to make some albums and try to play more shows and see how I can do at it. Anyway, I’d just like to say that my first reaction to this article was not unlike mysterious Mike’s there. It’s difficult to separate yourself from that capitalistic American attitude of “well it’s my music and nobody can have it without paying me for it!” But when it comes down to it, I know we all have pirated music. 3/4 of my music collection I’ve attained at no cost at all, and so I’m part of the problem too. It’s just too easy to get music for free now. That started as soon as the cassette tape happened, and now with CD burning, bit torrents, loop holes in IPod security, and the all-ruling internet it’s easier than ever to take music for free. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the value of music doesn’t lie within the dollar value of it. I have albums I’ve spent $15 dollars on at a record store that I listen to far less than the free album I burned from a friend. And I listen to the free one because the music resonates with me, not because I paid for it. Furthermore, because I got the album for free, and discovered a new artist that I like, I’ve spent far more than the cost of the album on shows, merch from the shows, and other albums that the same band put out. Also, the market value shouldn’t be set by labels, it should be set by the consumer. I think those who try to sell music would be wise to stick with the market value, which is exactly what any one person would be willing to pay for it. Otherwise (as was mentioned in a few other replies) sales are just going to slip away. Even if you make far less on your product than you paid for it, in most cases it’s safe to say that that will be made up for in other ways. I.E. publicity, fan loyalty, merch sales…whatever else. It’s a different market than it used to be for sure, and so we’re all going to have to embrace different marketing strategies if we want to make money at it. Of course, let’s not forget that music shouldn’t be about the money….the money should come with it if that’s what you want to make it do for you. Just don’t lose sight of your art. Thanks for the food for thought, Dave.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:19 pm[...] out there. Part of what we talked about concerned an experiment, where he convinced a few bands to stop offering set pricing on all of their merch, and instead, told them to ask each buyer what they wanted to pay. The bands that have tried this [...]
April 1st, 2009 at 11:12 am[...] out there. Part of what we talked about concerned an experiment, where he convinced a few bands to stop offering set pricing on all of their merch, and instead, told them to ask each buyer what they wanted to pay. The bands that have tried this [...]
April 1st, 2009 at 11:17 am[...] My Love of Vinyl RecordsThe End of the CD and CD RetailersDavid Byrne Tells The Record Labels to Embrace The MP3How Killing the CD Single Killed the Recording IndustryHow Bands Can Make More Money By Not Pricing Their Merchandize at Shows [...]
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 amDave, I’ve been reading many blogs and articles about this exact topic. I’ve been talking to a lot of fellow bands in Portland, many of which are so low tec they don’t even have computers (I think Portland is the capitol of broke-assed musicians, which is what I love about this Place) or know what Facebook and Twitter are. However many of these people and bands regularly make recordings and their own (individually self made) CDs, Ts, artwork and crafts – extremely DIY. When I talk about the NYOP model most people instantly agree and of course many have always done it this way since many of their fans are equally broke, what they seem most excited about is that they made a connection with a fan and often times that comes down to giving some enthousiastic show goer a free CD. Now they’ve got a loyal fan that will spread the word and bring his friends to future shows. I’ve given out that free CD many times and I’ve revieved that free CD many times and what it’s done is create a larger, more personal community of music supporters, a real grass roots DIY environment.
Now moving on to more savvy toruring bands, it’s absolutely invaluable to see the dollar figures for some people on the thread here. Thank you so much for posting that! It really helps get an understanding of what’s possible as a working musician. I know one band in town that is making enough money on the road to tour for 1 month on then take 1 month off, living off the show money. This was a test year for them and theres no doubt that the live music market is stronger than ever. I think with the crappy economy even more people are wantng “real” personal experienced and making connections with bands and fans seems to be providing a much needed boost to a lot of people. Usning the NYOP model makes the personal connection that much more involved and likely to be remembered for a long time.
Thanks again, these articles are very importnant for working bands trying to get on the right side of things as the world keeps shifting and changing around us.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:20 amOne more note, I’ll try to keep it short (which I’m not good at obviously):
You keep sighting industry music buying and listening trends, as always the teens consume the most music whether free or not, although most touring bands that rely on the NYOP model are playing venues that are 21+. It seems most show goers are early 20′s to mid 30′s. The 40 and over crowd is probably spending less time listening to the latest bands or getting excited about free downloads (they’re probably more concerned about paying their martgage).
Once apon a time all three age groups would hear and song on the radio or through a mixed tape and go buy the record at the same store. Now there seems to be three very different requirements for these three age groups. Free stuff for the tec savvy kids, NYOP for the 21+ show goers with jobs, itunes, PAY PAL or brick and mortar record store for the 40+ crowd? ? ? ?
I would love to hear what you or others think about the different needs of these different groups.
Thanks again, Tom
April 15th, 2009 at 10:34 amokay.. I admit this is a really good idea.. I have a question for all of you who tried it..
yeah cool.. but that person who pay that CD over the regular price and know a couple minutes later another fans pay it really less than that.. if not free..it can work against you… I know you’ll say it’s a “Name your own price!” kinda thing.. but is there any fans that comes to you upset because they paid more than another one..
I’m not sure as a music fans I would be happy that I gave you 15$ for a Cd and found out that another one paid 5$ for it..
I read all posts and I dont remember who said band should listen their fans…but I can tell you one thing about this… Musicians should really listen to their fans on what they want.. which they rarely do..I know some record company hates fans.. but they are the reasons why the musicians do what they do…
I will suggest that idea to the band that I work with, Im really curious about that “Name your own price!” thing :)
April 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm[...] I’ve read plenty of articles about merchandising for bands in the last couple of weeks and one of the articles I came across was written by a guy named Dave Allen. He has spoken at conferences such as SXSW, SFMusicTech, GrammyMusicTech and PopAshville. Anyway, he had a novel idea that I think that every band should at least try it’s called “Name Your Price.â€Â Basically how it works is instead of having listed prices for your CD’s, t-shirts, etc. you announce during your show that you have a booth setup and people can pay what they can for your merchandise. He found that more times then not, people paid more for the items then the bands usually sold them for. If you are interested in reading the entire article, here is the link. http://www.pampelmoose.com/mspeaks/2009/02/how-bands-can-make-more-money-by-not-putting-a-price-on-a… [...]
May 4th, 2009 at 6:23 pm[...] 10. Dave Allen at Pampelmoose suggests a “Name Your Own Price” deal. He finds that the artists makes more and that fans will pay above the usual asking price and feel great about doing it – sure there is the occasional here is a penny for everything…don’t believe me – here is his article “How Bands Make More Money By Not Putting A Price On Their CDs.” [...]
June 8th, 2009 at 5:58 pmI am a musician from Indonesia (still a part-time musician).
I’ve just kinda googled & browsed around, until I finally happened to find ur writing (article).
I have to say, that it’s really, seriously refreshing, and somewhat invigorates my ‘musical’ spirit (that used to get so ‘down’ and depressed, thinking “will there be any point in me making beautiful music?…”), and even blown away all the ‘dark clouds’ that has clouded my vision, that I almost forgot to try to see POSITIVE in even what seemingly the “free download” music era these days!
I have to say, that I almost fell down like what Mike (on above post) thinking, ie: “I NEED to put a quite HIGH price, for people to value my music-making & Art! ‘cuz it’s no ordinary music!”
but then, after reading this article (& also reading a lot of wonderful responses & posts here!), I’ve got hit in the head and made realized again of how ‘selfish’ I’ve almost become, and how I actually, in a way, almost lost the ‘essence’ of MUSIC itself, ie: that it’s not just merely a “business”, but something beautiful, of high value, and has this ‘magical’ ability of touching humanity, that should be SHARED to as many people as possible!
although I’m still pretty much a starting home-producing artist/musician/songwriter, I think I’ll definitely try out this idea, especially when there comes my first gig (I’m expecting & targeting that on October this year).
What is really valuable from this article, most especially, is of how it is a “liberating”, fresh, and new perspective, and also have taught me to try to see POSITIVE things in even the seemingly ‘bad’ or ‘worst’ situation!
thanks, Dave!
I’ll also surely forward this article to my friends, & most especially, my musician friends!
Niki
July 21st, 2009 at 6:49 amIndonesia
I’m having this same problem with my band. I’ve engineered our full length cd at my home studio. It turned out sounding GREAT! We’ve become “Artist of the Month” at http://www.krxq.net for Sacramento. We had our CD release party where we gave away 50 CD’s for free. A couple of members want to continue giving it away for free, where a couple of other members see value in the music and out of pocket monies spent to produce this disc. I’ve put it out there that we should give away 3 or 5 song demos and sell the 10 song full length for $5. That has eurpted in arguements. I’m wanting to try this NYOP to see how it works. I’ve been reading all the posts and it seems to work well for many others, yet I don’t want to potentially piss off “customers” when one finds out that they paid more than another. I would think that anyone naming their own price would pay their precieved value and think that band is the coolest band EVER!! And still give some away to those who don’t have any money after paying the outrageous cover charge just to come see you.
Just wanted to throw my thoughts and questions out there.
Justin
August 14th, 2009 at 2:54 pmDave, I think it is really awesome what you are doing, and I think you are right on. I also think that this Mike guy doesn’t make sense, and he doesn’t think straight, which is probably why he has not been succesful. I think you were right the first time with him, but I’m impressed at how you went all out to satisfy him, even though it is such a bummer and waste of time to take someone so stupid and negative seriously. Mike is totally pointless and scatter brained. He has no constructive points.
September 20th, 2009 at 10:24 amSincerely,
John
[...] most vocal being musicians who believe that I am working to make music free online and therefore deny them income from CD sales. Nothing could be further from the truth, I simply argue that musicians need to monetize everything [...]
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:12 pmHey mr. moderator… Answer these questions.
-the re-emergence of vinyl records is upon us.
-the crappy sound quality of downloaded music hurts my ears.
-An artist who spends 10 years of dedication to produce a 12 track album is expected to be “cool” with giving it away for free and making zero dollars if he doesn’t fit the “touring” paradigm?
-there is a problem with DRM? In my opinion its theonly hope for saving us all.
whatcha got on those points?
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 amCharlie,
Vinyl records are my favorite form of listening to music, have been for a long time. By asking for musicians to embrace the web I am encouraging musicians to be more creative and to take control of their own output and distribution. I never said don’t use vinyl. For e.g. Radiohead’s In Rainbows package, with the album spread across 2 45 rpm vinyl records, worked well.
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:30 amI’d argue that a 320kb MP3 file sounds as good as a CD. As a container the CD is useless except for transporting a digital file to a portable device. Stick to vinyl and remember, when we record in the studio, to say a 16 track 2″ tape machine, the end result after the mix is transferred to digital at 48khz, it is again transferred at a lower bit rate to get it on a CD – 44.1khz. Maybe you should use FLAC files instead of MP3s.
The idea of having to release a 12 track album is the artists falling into the “container” trap. Technologists created how much material would fit on a vinyl record or a CD, not artists. In those ten years you mention, there would have been ample to time to make money around the experience. For instance, sell T-shirts with a free MP3 included, build up to the release of the music collection. And by the way, if music fans are buying way less albums, just going for single tracks, wouldn’t artists want to rethink how thy get music out anyway?
DRM is dead in the water. Music fans have shown they do not want restrictions to portability of their purchased music. That’s the old “Home Taping is Killing Music” message.
I don’t understand what you mean by “doesn’t fit the touring paradigm.” Why wouldn’t an artist want to play live to its fans whilst having an opportunity to attract new fans?
If you want to survive as an artist you picked the wrong profession. Just kidding but really. I’ve been hustling CD’s and shirts from Venice Beach to New Orleans and all points in between. Now I do it on the web. An artist has something to say. Some times it’s hard to accept that people may not want to hear it. True artists of the mad variety, make their music anyway. Some times greatness is mistaken for crap and crap is great. If you have enough of anything you can sell it. My mind works in a strange fashion. If you understand any of what I’ve just said, you most likely swim in the same murky waters of obscure musical corridors as I. Then you must innovate! Wait I mean immitate. It’s easy really just see what works for everyone else. Steal the idea then apply your own packaging. CD’s out? Boo Hoo shitty format anyhow. I offer memory sticks at gigs as well as CD’s and sell both quite well. Offering unique items and such. Like custom titty signatures at this years HOODILIDOO in Herod IL! I often make home special edition merch like my crazy book. As well as custom CD’s for fans that want high quality right off the master custom CD’s or memory stick of my stuff. I plan another book as well as new shirt designs. Market saturation and completely shameless self promotion are key. You must be your own pimp or be someone else’s bitch. Dig.
Jimmy Valentine
December 4th, 2009 at 7:11 pm[...] bands can make more money on merch by not putting prices on [...]
December 9th, 2009 at 1:00 am[...] b. EF points out an interesting article about how you might make more if your band doesn’t put prices on your merch HERE> [...]
December 10th, 2009 at 9:17 ami was on tour in France,Germany,Spain for two months i sold over 200 cd And 75 vinly record i was suprise
December 10th, 2009 at 9:38 am[...] most vocal being musicians who believe that I am working to make music free online and therefore deny them income from CD sales. Nothing could be further from the truth, I simply argue that musicians need to monetize everything [...]
December 14th, 2009 at 2:52 amPeople make me laugh…
So, they are in a bar, drinking beers like water at 5$ a bottle, but they are too poor to buy a CD or a download to put on their 300$ iPod… haha yeah riight.
Maybe this thing can work NOW, but I garantee you, once it becomes mainstream to “pay what you want”, it will lose its “coolness” factor, and most people will expect to “pay what they want” all the time, and the amount they will be ready to pay will go down day by day.
Good luck…
December 14th, 2009 at 12:47 pmAs a cog in the works of an Indie label, and an musician myself, I think these ideas are really interesting.
It takes a while to get your head around the idea that you can make money by giving things away – but free samples and “buy one get one free” offers have worked for years in Supermarkets, so why are we any different as “artists”?
Now I’ve just got to persuade the rest of the staff…
December 15th, 2009 at 9:36 amreading the ongoing comments here in December (from a thread that started in Feb!) is fascinating. @Dave–I honestly think a Dave Allen version of a tome like Tour Smart by Martin Atkins would be a big undertaking, but well worth the time investment. You’ve got a lot to offer the indie musician and this thread of back-n-forth shows quite a demand.
December 16th, 2009 at 4:19 pmAwesome discussion! I love the thoughtfulness, variety of ideas and viewpoints, and passion. Someone said, that all is valid until the dust settles. I’m thinking that the dust may never settle, at the rate that technology is advancing. With individuals increasingly able to wield more influence, not needed big dollars to make an impact as with napster, how will any paradigm be held static? The days of the ‘big boys’ are over.
when i read all of this stuff, i get overwhelmed. I feel like the only way I can make an impact with my music is by playing in front of people and connecting, a few people at a time. When everyone’s a musician, and everyone has a band, how can i yell loud enough on the web to get noticed?
December 25th, 2009 at 8:16 amThis’ll probably come as a complete shock to most…but not every musician likes/wants to tour. Not every musician likes/wants to perform live. Some musicians are (like their visual-FX counterparts in the movie business) “studio wizards,” and are massively gifted at the art and science of crafting truly brilliant musical recordings. I’m one of those guys (OK…I’m not sure I’d classify my recordings as “brilliant,” but with 20 years of studio experience, I most def own up to the moniker of “wizard.”) Anyways- I write, sing, play guitar, bass, piano/synth, drums…all myself. Logistically, how in hell WOULD I play “live?” Even if it made practical/monetary and artistic sense to play live, I’m not really interested in slogging gear from bar to bar to bar just so I can maybe sell some t-shirts, keychains and a few posters. I’ve got nothing against the new music economy. More ways to expose, especially new artists – and to monetize the craft of music totally rocks. But if it (the new music economy) continues to morph the art of recorded music – forcing musicians and, particularly, COMPOSERS into becoming de-facto professional party planners, blogger/Twitterers and trinket salesmen…we’re all going to lose out. The business of music is, of course, business. Amen! But the soul of music is art. If we’re spending all of our time approving “friend” requests and size-sorting hoodies, when in the hell will we find the time, energy and focus to be artists?
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:48 amThank you very Dave, for taking the time and sharing. Will definitely keep your technique in mind !
May 12th, 2010 at 6:14 amThank you for the article…great work
March 19th, 2011 at 8:24 pm[...] fan can afford to pay. Don’t take my word for it, ask this relatively unknown band – it works. Ben Taylor, on tour, did it and he sold way [...]
July 10th, 2011 at 11:45 am[...] model after hearing about success stories from artists like Radiohead, Pampelmoose (check out their great article on how bands can make more money at shows), and Jason Parker (he’s been exploring a pay-what-you-want model for several years [...]
September 8th, 2012 at 7:32 am