Buy some merch for some free music!

In a previous post of mine, I mentioned how illegal downloading of music makes it very difficult for musicians to make any money from selling music - which is the traditional way for a musician to make money, after all, they are musicians, and that's what musicians do, right?

However it seems like a new business model is coming about. If people aren't willing to buy music, but will still download it because they like the artist, they might still buy a t-shirt or a badge or a gig ticket or some random crap with the band logo on it, just to show support and/or look cool.

After all we all know that you can't download T-Shirts, Badges, Cups, Hats and Toilet Paper.

Fair enough, it is possible to make these things yourself, you can buy blank cups and shirts etc and all the stuff you need to print/paint your own logos onto them, or, if you're really showing off, you can buy the fabric yourself, buy the clay yourself and scratch build everything yourself. It might look awesome, but it might also cost more in the end. Or it might just look crap. So thankfully, human laziness and a need for quality ensure that the vast majority of fans would rather buy good quality merch from the band, rather than spend time and effort making something themselves that might fall apart at the blink of an eye, or look like someone blew up an Abakhan store and glued some of the bits together.

However, there are some people out there who actually can't be bothered to order things form your website either, and when getting your merch into store on the high street can be more difficult than trigonometry, we have to find another way to sell merch and get our music out there.

It might come to a point soon where some artists are selling a t-shirt with a limited edition of the album they are promoting FREE with the t-shirt and some bonus tracks. It's selling out on a new level and could ultimately damage the artists rep. It's the same as your Mum saying "If you don't eat your veg, you won't get any ice cream." (which is a fair deal for me since I don't like ice cream.) Instead we're just saying "If you don't buy our shirt, we won't let you have our music." We have to make money somehow, and I'm expecting someone to try this idea at some point. It's an idea that pushes the music to the back of the product, and starts to turn the musician into a fashion icon or a trendy brand label of sorts.

Aside from this, the pay-what-you-want model appears to work, as demonstrated by bandcamp who stated that artists who release their albums with a set minimum price actually get 1.5 times more income than artists who just set a price. This model works if you're not releasing your music for free or with a minimum price of 0.

It also appears that the physical CD will become something of a novelty, and that the vast majority of music will continue to be acquired online.

The good thing about going completely digital is that the 'album' can be reinvented. It no longer has to be a certain number of songs, or a certain length, etc. It can be as short or long as people like now there is no CD to be restricted by. The size of an album is only restricted by the hard drive its going onto. It also opens up entirely new formats of music - interactive, reactive, modular, as opposed to traditional linear music that we are all so accustomed to in everyday life. Imagine a song that you can change as you listen to it, or even a new generation of music games that involve you manipulation an environment in order to change the music, as opposed to just pushing the right buttons at the right time to recreate the music as best as possible to the original.

Many people are complaining about the death of the album, but the people behind applications such as RJDJ are bringing in a new era or music listening experience. Albums of the future might well start to incorporate more senses in the experience - we will no longer just be listening to music, we will be experiencing it.

This might be the answer to problems selling music. People illegally downloading music might be a sign of the times, a sign that people are getting bored of linear music and don't see its value anymore. the future of music sales may well be that people buy an app to play the music on, and the music is something they play with, as opposed to music they just play.

I am personally looking forward to the evolution of the album, and I intend to jump on the new media bandwagon as well as try to develop ideas of my own.