Public Enemy Crowd-Sources Its Next Album
I’ve argued in private for a while that, with advances in recording technology and distribution, record companies are going to all but disappear. Now, rap legends Public Enemy suggest another reason why big record companies’ days are numbered:
Hip hop pioneers Public Enemy will partner with fan-funding site Sellaband to finance their next album. Public Enemy is one of the first established acts to sign up to Sellaband’s new custom funding program and aims to raise $250,000 for the album in $25 increments. Public Enemy was incidentally also one of the first acts to release music on mp3.
…Once the funding target is reached the album is made and the proceeds are split between the artist and the believers. Various incentives like downloads and concert tickets can also be offered to believers.
No doubt this funding mechanism, which seems to mix prepayment with profit sharing, will end up a niche practice. But it does suggest that, these days, pop artists are increasingly able to reach their fans without need for a middleman.
They’ll have some interesting securities law and broker-dealer issues if they bring that concept to the US. This type of arrangement is almost certainly a security for US purposes and would require registration with the SEC. The cost of that would be problematic for the current structure, at least as outlined in the article.
— Steven Donegal · Oct 6, 04:34 PM · #
Jim Hall and Bill Frisell used this type of mechanism a couple years back. As I recall you could go in at differing levels of support and at the higher levels got album credits and the like. Public Enemy is a few years late to the party actually.
— Sanjay · Oct 6, 05:04 PM · #
I think you should amend the last sentence to But it does suggest that, these days, pop artists who are already popular are increasingly able to reach their fans without need for a middleman.
Getting popular remains the problem for unknowns, and the solution “get popular on the Internet” is as difficult to pull off as the old “get signed with a record label”.
— JS Bangs · Oct 6, 05:27 PM · #
What Steven said – I can’t see big government allowing this, especially after the lobbyists get through with it. What was that peer to peer lending exchange that got closed down a while ago?
With that said, I would kick in $25 for The Metasciences or the Sun Messengers to make a new album just so that they would make a new album, particularly if I got a copy of the album when it was done. It might make more sense to pre-sell special edition albums than to sell shares in the enterprise. You could also sell access to podcasts, demo releases, etc. to higher level contributors.
— J Mann · Oct 6, 06:08 PM · #
What JMann is describing is basically what ArtistShare has been doing for some long time, with as I mentioned Jim Hall and Bill Frisell and others; I think I have something by Chris Potter that was done by ArtistShare too, and I think Maria Schneider uses them quite a bit.
— Sanjay · Oct 6, 06:29 PM · #
We did pre-sales of Damon and Hunter, Matt and Khym, and Ashley and Kisha. With very few exceptions people waited as long as two years for films to get finished/delivered.
Took a break on the pre-sale program for Bill and Desiree, but reinstated the program for the current to-be-released film Brett and Melanie.
People who say things like “Getting popular remains the problem for unknowns, and the solution “get popular on the Internet” is as difficult to pull off as the old “get signed with a record label”.” are sourgrapes-partypooper-wannabes who will never do anything, regardless of how easy it is.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 6, 11:04 PM · #
This might work if it was a band of relevance…PE? When was the last time you they did anything interesting? Also, I didn’t read the details but the $250K, is that just recording? What about marketing, packaging, distribution, etc. etc.
— RIRedinPA · Oct 7, 07:02 PM · #
“What about marketing, packaging, distribution, etc. etc.”
You’re missing the point. Mostly marketing, packaging, distribution, etc makes money for people who are in the business of marketing, packaging, distirbtion, etc. Rarely does it make any money for the recording artist, filmmaker, etc.
Less splash, more cash.
— Tony Comstock · Oct 7, 10:25 PM · #