a variation on the new business model...
So it looks like this pay-what-you-want model could be catching on.
Mashup DJ Girl Talk will be releasing his new album, Feed the Animals online before it arrives in a physical format. Given that he has some pretty high-profile summer shows lined up, this may just be a convenient way to get the material into people's heads before the shows happen. Though given the style of music he plays, I'd prefer to go into a show completely blind and just be surprised. For those who are unfamiliar with what separates Girl Talk from the average mashupper, I think Greg Gillis (a.k.a Girl Talk) describes it best himself:
"For the final editing process, I probably worked eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, for about 3 months. I worked very hard to make it sound like I didn't work hard."
Either way, interested listeners should check up on the Illegal Art label site over the next few weeks - there's a very good chance I'll post again when it actually goes up.
But what of this whole release strategy?
Personally, I'm trying to figure out what I'd pay for this. My usual approach is usually to try it for free than by the CD, so I'm not sure I want to pay for this twice. As a result, I can't see myself paying much. Also, will they adhere to Trent Reznor's strategy and let you pick the quality - or just sell lossy, mediocre quality mp3's like Radiohead did?
Personally I think there could be a balance between what Radiohead and Reznor have done that could cater to both markets (people who only want the mp3 along with folks who intend to buy the CD). I like what Reznor did, but there wasn't a (legal) option for folks who weren't quite ready to for the full price (although, at $5, Ghosts I-IV was reasonably priced).
I'm thinking vouchers are the way to go - the money you pledge for the mp3's could be put towards a pre-order of the physical CD. This could all be done via e-mail, basically the below the download code they'll send you after you 'pay-what-you-want' they could also have a link to pre-order the album with your credit discounted from the final price. I would think the best way to approach it would be to make the vouchers pre-order only, so on release day they would expire. Then folks would have a few weeks to consider converting to a full purchase, or just sticking with what they paid.
If the above model was applied, I guarantee I would put more towards it. I'd be curious to know what other folks thought.
Comments
I like the idea of having higher prices for increased levels of ownership, assuming that this wouldn't be weasled into a way to raise music prices.
Interestingly enough, the recently launched MP3 site, lala adopted this idea, though since it's still "beta" it's not really all that usable yet (there's a lot of songs listed, that you can't actually listen to).
They have two tiers of "ownership" for a song. You can buy a license to stream it as much as you want (though, the first hit is free) from their website for 10c, and if you want to buy the MP3 it'll be 10c less, if you already bought a streaming license.
Though, I'd imagine doing this for CDs would be a little more complicated. Especially if you care about the brick-and-mortar CD stores.
Posted by: qedi | June 11, 2008 12:00 PM