Now that we’re into a new year, and most people have already made and/or broken their resolutions, I wanted to address a l’il issue that bugs me. For those who know me, this isn’t the following:
1. People who put butter on their bagels. Wrong for SO many reasons.
2. Grown adults who type/text like 12-year old girls. Srsly. IDK, it’s just retarded.
3. I don’t care about that much of your life. Stop with the incessant Twittering. U no who u r!
No, the issue that truly gets under my skin, the one that really frosts my cookies, the one that drives me to drink appropriately aged single malt scotch, is the issue of free. Now I know we’re in a recession, and things have tended to lose value, but this goes far deeper. In today’s music space, musicians should give things away (their music, etc.) in order to attract a following which will in turn pay for their gigs, merch, and whatever else.
Example A: the cow
Example B: the milk
The expression goes “why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?” The aforementioned cow, you/your band, is giving away milk with the assumption that the potential purchaser will come back for a steak. Or something like that. This example could greatly benefit by a little help from Alton Brown. Since he’s not here, I’ll attempt to continue alone.
If your music is given away for free, that’s a lost revenue stream that you’re gambling a lot on. My guess is people are a LOT more willing to test drive you for 99 cents, and not for much more. If they like the 99 cents, let ’em roll the dice on another 99 cents. By offering the milk/tunes/goods for free, you devalue the basis of your entire premise: you’re a musician, you write the songs that make the whole world sing … and that’s worth something!
iTunes and eMusic have proven that in the iPod age, people buy singles more often than albums. Fine, dandy even. So it’s probably easier to make 99 cents ten times, than $9.98 once. But if the tracks are all free, then you’ve never even had a chance. And if you’re not gigging like a madman/woman, then you’re SOL, aren’t you? Ford won’t give away a Focus so you’ll come back to buy a Mustang. Think about it.
When people noticed that no one was buying CDs, they proclaimed the Freemium Economy was here to stay. Illegal downloading was taking profits away, so instead of working to stop people from “taking” your music, we can Big Brother the crap out of ’em and sue their asses (Thanks RIAA for the brilliant PR campaign!), or we can just give it all away. Ha ha, now we’re only screwing ourselves out of cash — see, we don’t need anyone to do it for us!
Let me repeat this as succinctly as possible: Your music is your product. It has value. Don’t give it away. Eventually the cow with the free milk dries up. Then there’s nothing left to buy.
agree to an extent–what about the idea that if the mp3 is so devalued it’s a gateway to things like live ticket sales and merch sales?
Nah …. I don’t buy that. Never really did. What does it say about an artist or an audience, when the roadblock is 99 cents? I bought your stuff, liked it, went to your performances. Pretty logical progression, right? But if you gave me your stuff for free, and I didn’t like it, then I wouldn’t check out your gig. Now you get no ticket sales and no merch sale.
Supposed I “risked” 99 cents and didn’t like you? At least then, you’ve still got a small sale…
And, I would venture to guess it’s easier to get your music anywhere than see you live. For example, how often do you play Guam? Should the Guamanians get free music in anticipation of your next visit?
This is all silly though, ‘cuz really … who doesn’t like your music? 😛