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Respect? the key to music for Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails?
Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails made the news with a “new” attitude toward their fans and the music industry. Radiohead is asking their fans to pay what they feel the music is worth, and Nine Inch Nails has gone so far as to encourage sharing of their music.
Is this a trend? and can this pay?
Back in 2004, at the Music 2.0 conference, the best attended panel featured college students who promised to share their attitudes on music. There were a lot of puzzled corporate types scratching their heads, constantly peppering the students about legality, RIAA, fear, and school restrictions on sharing, but none of them seemed to get the answers they wanted — basically that the law would make them pay for their music. If there was one common theme from the four panelists, though, it was that they all claimed that they WOULD pay for music, but just the music that they really liked. They admitted some moral obligation to pay for music from artists they respected. Or in other words, no respect, no payment.
Fast forward to Radiohead last week and their new plan, and it could be that Radiohead is actually listening to their fans. Nine Inch Nails could just be echoing that same sentiment from its fans as well. Is it all about making music album and song sales, or is it about making fans happy? Do happy fans mean more money for the band in the end?
Musicians I know sometimes berate me for even mentioning music album and/or track sales. They often repeat that they want users to share their music so that more people know about them. The more fans they have, the easier it is for them to go on tour - where they tell me the real money is. The math has been beaten do death on the actual cut the artists make from each song, and it’s small, so we’ll skip yet another royalty calculation.
So if the bands success is really about booking tour gigs, and touring is about fans. Then shouldn’t bands be about getting as much distribution as possible to build the biggest fan base possible? Then if so, maybe Nine Inch Nails is more “right” in breaking from music contracts.
So is it that simple? Well, we can’t forget one thing - the content has to be good… So good that the fans must respect you and buy your music, or good enough that they share it to all their friends. Is there a lesson buried here? Give away something for free, earn you customers’ trust, upsell them on something of higher value. Sound really like smart simple marketing and knowing your customer.
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2 things…
1. Concert prices have skyrocketed post-Napster. I remember back in the early 90’s you could see a large-venue concert for $20-30 a ticket. Nowadays it’s $50-100.
2. Bands like Radiohead and NIN can afford to make pennies on the dollar for their music because they already have those enormous fan bases. I can see a lot of struggling musicians around the LA area that are seriously frustrated that the intrinsic “value” of music has declined.
Before Napster; the concert supported the album sales. Nowadays, the album supports the concert sales.
The money in rock’n'roll has been in touring and merch, not record sales, since Elvis was driving trucks. I remember an interview with ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted in the late 90’s where he greeted the reporter at the door to his palatial Napa Valley pad, pointed to the enormous house behind him and said something like “Welcome to the house that concert t-shirts built”.
What happens to touring revenues when gas hits $5 a gallon, though? Touring bands are already skipping meals in order to get the van to the next gig. If you give your music away in order to generate more fans, but you can’t get to those fans in order to sell them tickets to a show, and a t-shirt afterwards, how do you make any money?
Distributing your music for free in order to generate interest and create new fans seems to make sense, but I think the jury is very much out as to exactly what the “higher value something” is that you’ll be upselling, and when/where you’ll be upselling it.
The money in rock’n'roll has been in touring and merch, not record sales, since Elvis was driving trucks. I remember an interview with ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted in the late 90’s where he greeted the reporter at the door to his palatial Napa Valley pad, pointed to the enormous house behind him and said something like “Welcome to the house that concert t-shirts built”.
What happens to touring revenues when gas hits $5 a gallon, though? Touring bands are already skipping meals in order to get the van to the next gig. If you give your music away in order to generate more fans, but you can’t get to those fans in order to sell them tickets to a show, and a t-shirt afterwards, how do you make any money?
Distributing your music for free in order to generate interest and create new fans seems to make sense, but I think the jury is very much out as to exactly what the “higher value something” is that you’ll be upselling, and when/where you’ll be upselling it.
I’m surprised more bands don’t give away their music for free. For most bands these days, the vast majority of the money now lies in touring and merchandise. If you give away the music for free online, you can build a huge email list, fan base, etc. and you’ll have have an eager audience to sell tickets and merchandise to. Loyal fans who receive free music will gladly pony up and pay money to see a good show and maybe even come home with a t-shirt too.
Duane, I’m happy you put quotes around “new” but you never really got into the details. The biggest point I would have added (and I guess I’m adding it here) is that this is not new. It may not be popular, but go back to The Grateful Dead. They not only allowed sharing, but they encouraged it. They had dedicated areas of the concert floor for people who were there to record the show. These “bootleg” tapes were then sold and traded among the fan community and the band did not care.
As MB said above, they made money from touring and merchandise. Knowing The Dead, they might have had a cut of the drug sales too.