Artists Who Give Their Music Away

[rcarlberg]

I wouldn't consider signing a band who is giving their music away. If they don't believe in it enough to charge for it, I'm not doing the heavy lifting for their career.

Not even samples sorry camples? How long a cample would you call acceptable -- 30 seconds? One minute? How about if they offered one track complete?


Goin' Mobile!

[bob_32_116]

It's a mystery to me why more artists don't do partial samples. They could put a voice announcement or something over the track, which would make it rather unappealing to download and listen repeatedly, but you would still be able to tell what the uncontaminated track sounded like.


Won't Get Fooled Again

[klothos]

Well, my strategy is this:

My funk project has 9 complete songs plus 4 more collaborating with other hip-hop artists for a total of 13 so far (got a couple more being completed as of this writing). The first 5 came out on an EP on Carbon 12 records in Indiana. The other 4 are single releases with no associated album and we are gonna keep it that way. I have one of the songs from the EP is available as a free download on SoundCloud from time to time. One of the other 4 is available for free from SoundCloud. The rest are for sale between $.75 and $.99 depending on which digi distributor.

The free stuff is there for no other reason but to attract potential fans to a listen and to spread the gospel of funk to other fans of that style of music...It has nothing to do with not thinking we arent worth the money but more as a marketing strategy and just making us plain ol happy that people like our music.

The other thing is our age: We arent even remotely pretending that we are going to be rich or famous....success for us is just having people like the music so anything else on top of that is a bonus. We do almost zero promotion. We dont spam messageboards, facebook, or host ads anywhere. We just hope people discover us and like what they hear.

All the collaboration songs are available for Free: technically, we do not own the complete rights to those songs so it is wrong for us to post them and make money with them. The contributing hip hop artists are OK with them being free releases

Although it isnt free, the song in my link has been on SoundClick's funk charts for awhile...it got to #3 there on its own....it is now mysteriously back on their funk chart and is currently at #8 after falling off the chart completely. We are getting downloads from different places of it and its getting a bit of digi radio play and we have even picked up a lot of "fans" on Jango radio, mostly from the one song

So, for us, giving away some music for free is just fine and dandy

[rcarlberg]

... to spread the gospel of funk

AMEN brother!

[Yves]

And, I must ask, if you can listen to the music, which you can on bandcamp, and you aren't interested in it enough to pay for it, why are you downloading it?

I honestly cannot find an answer for that. I could say I was intrigued enough to want to explore it further, but then I should just kick in a couple of bucks, a gesture of goodwill, before downloading, right?

This thread is making me see what I believed all along. I guess I was just being a cheapskate. I'll pay for the music or leave it alone.

[Steve F.]

I honestly cannot find an answer for that. I could say I was intrigued enough to want to explore it further, but then I should just kick in a couple of bucks, a gesture of goodwill, before downloading, right?

I can only answer for what I do.

I listen to tons of stuff on bandcamp. If I like it enough to want to download it, I pay for it. Even if they don't require me to.

This thread is making me see what I believed all along. I guess I was just being a cheapskate. I'll pay for the music or leave it alone.

If you buy into the new paradigm of how it is supposed to work and how artists are empowered and don't need labels and people will pay what they think it is worth - which I don't, personally, but ymmv - then, yes, you should pay.

Otherwise, how are 'the fans' any better than the labels that 'the fans' claim have been ripping off the artists for 50 years and are now happy to see gone?

Answer - IF they act like this, they aren't any better and they don't even offer tour support or advertising support or lend them the money to put them in the studio, etc etc etc.

[klothos]

If you buy into the new paradigm of how it is supposed to work and how artists are empowered and don't need labels and people will pay what they think it is worth - which I don't, personally, but ymmv - then, yes, you should pay.

Otherwise, how are 'the fans' any better than the labels that 'the fans' claim have been ripping off the artists for 50 years and are now happy to see gone?

I need to clarify that when I make references to the benefits of the New Business Model in comparison to record labels, Im mainly addressing the large mainstream commercial corporations (and, as far as I can tell, so are most of the articles that I read)...... labels such as Alligator Records (blues), Metropolis (electro industrial) your label (prog/jazz/intelligent music), etc arent being addressed: Labels like this become associated with quality in one or a few genres with both the audience and artist base and thats apples and oranges compared to labels like Sony

[Steve F.]

I don't think it has anything to do with quality.

I think it has to do with the same problem that applies to most businesses in the USA: Is it a public or a private company?

If it's a public company, it is forced to chase better and better quarters meaning shorter and shorter term goals, in order to satisfy stockholders.

If it's a private company, it can focus on what it wants to focus on. Like music if you are a music company.

IMO.

AND

While you and 'most of the articles you read' may be drawing a distinction between the majors and the minors, as it were, they never say that. They say 'labels'.

Your post above is the only time I have seen this distinction made, which pisses me off no end, although I DO appreciate your making this distinction.

[rcarlberg]

Your post above is the only time I have seen this distinction made, which pisses me off no end, although I DO appreciate your making this distinction.

Sorry Steve but i'll call bullshit on this.

I have called out "the major labels" a couple of times, even given their names. I never accused Cuneiform -- nor would I ever -- of the same heinous business practices. You are, and will always remain, my hero.

[Plasmatopia]

I thought Steve was possibly referring to various articles on the subject never making the distinction. Pretty sure it has been made here on PE before. I'm thinking I may actually have made the distinction myself once, although it didn't do me much good.

[klothos]

I don't think it has anything to do with quality.

I think it has to do with the same problem that applies to most businesses in the USA: Is it a public or a private company?

If it's a public company, it is forced to chase better and better quarters meaning shorter and shorter term goals, in order to satisfy stockholders.

If it's a private company, it can focus on what it wants to focus on. Like music if you are a music company.

IMO.

AND

While you and 'most of the articles you read' may be drawing a distinction between the majors and the minors, as it were, they never say that. They say 'labels'.

Your post above is the only time I have seen this distinction made, which pisses me off no end, although I DO appreciate your making this distinction.

The biggest difference (and its a HUGE one) between the Majors and Minors was that Minor labels never dictated the industry. It was the Majors who told guys like me holding my demo CDs "Youre too old! Youre too ugly! Etc" in the meanwhile signing every 20 year old knucklehead with Frooty loops, six-pack abs, or boobz n buttz if female. (As you say, "chasing quarters for short term goals")....and force-feeding this to the masses

Conversely, Minor labels became a Sanctuary for good music often based on the merits of the music itself (key) and, by the mid to late 90s, Minors had a reputation for this -- to the point that even Major labels recognized this and were putting their artists out on countless cookie-cutter subsidiaries in the guise of looking like "Indy" Artists until their greed (MP3, downloadable format, remove the distributor middle-man) backfired by trying to implement a format change to a medium that could be easily duplicated illegally

This is where the New Business Model came into play, and folks were watching that prophetic video Todd Rundgren made way back when......The New Business Model (give away music, make a name for yourself, sell merchandise and tickets) is designed to help new artists in the digital age get established by circumventing the majors, but even these new bands eventually hit a brick wall as that method only goes so far. Every band that I can think of that championed the New Business Model had to at least get on a reputable Minor label to go further. A great case and point is "A Day To Remember", who D.I.Y.d it as long as possible until they knew they needed help to continue, which led to them signing to Victory Records