I have my music on-line. When I complete a CD and it goes up for sale I will make about 3/4 of the songs available for download or streaming.
I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten an e-mail like this…
“Hey, I just listened to some of your music on ‘insert name of CD’ and I REALLY liked them. Some of the best I’ve heard. I’m going to burn these tracks to a CD so I can listen to them in my car. Why is it you don’t have all the songs available for download? If they are as good as the other tracks I’d really love to download them.”
You know what? That’s a great compliment and all but why don’t you SUPPORT THE ARTIST AND JUST BUY THE DAMN CD?
My studio costed a lot of money to assemble. Having my music on-line costs me money. I spend HOURS working on tracks and CD’s. If you love the music so much just buy the CD you cheap bastard! It’s cheaper then any CD you’d buy from EMI or Sony. Why is it if I’m not signed to EMI or Sony is my music not worth value? Why do I have to GIVE you anything?
For what its worth… when I D/L a song but don’t buy the cd it is because I like the music enough to listen casually but not enough to pay for. If the song was not available I would not download it and still not buy the cd…
In your case it seems to be simple cheap bastards. However, I always support “underground” music when I can. In fact, I’ve purchased several cds from a friend who has a band out of Brasil. Those werent cheap after shipping costs…
That said - what parts of this music do you play ? Its very soothing and I really enjoyed some of the descriptions which accompany some songs. Is this all you ? Very well done. I’ll have to digest the vocals for a while, not sure if they agree with me. I’ll tell you what though, I think you’ve got mega-talent I hope you’re at least doing a lot of local gigs…
Looking back, that last reply was unfitting for a ranting forum. Let me try again.
runs of to remove that until this rant falls away because this isn’t about people hitting my music page it’s about the music consumer that spends a billion dollars on music released by major corporations who could use another dollar like a pick axe to the rectum but sends the me an e-mail asking why I’m not giving all my music away for free because I’m just a humble independent musician and there are thousands of other independent musicians giving all their music away for free so I should just hop on the bandwagon and do the same thing because after all I’m not signed to a major label therefore my music isn’t worth the bytes they are recorded on because if it was then I WOULD be signed to a major label and I could afford to buy a monkey and have plastic surgery until I look like Diana Ross and buy flashy cars and dance on MTV like some epileptic with 9000 volts running into his colon while wearing baggy pants large enough to fit 37 rabid midgets in clown suits while the retarded rejects of the Solid Gold Dancers follow my lead and we have a race to see who can grow the worlds stupidest facial hair!
The problem is that a lot of CD purchases are impulse buys. I betcha 99% of the people who download your music think to themselves, “This is great! I’ll have to order the CD tomorrow!”
Tomorrow comes, they listen to the music, and they think, “This is great! I’ll have to order the CD tomorrow!”
Seven, if you have your music online in order to get the word out and maybe sell a few CDs, having a link here might do you some good. You might even consider putting it in your sig, a little advertisement never hurt anybody, right?
Cheesesteak: You know, I DID have it as a “www” link when I first posted this thread. And I do have it in my signature already. I just really didn’t want to leave my URLs because of the content of the thread. It just seems, umm… weird. Kind of spammy. You know what I mean?
SPOOFE: I agree that many CD sales ARE impule buys. I’m just urked that I get these glowing reviews in e-mail about music I’ve done but people want it for free.
One I got not long ago was from someone who had heard music from an old project of mine had done in '83 (I created a CD of the music and put it online). This person gave some very nice comments about the music but wondered why 2 of the songs on the CD weren’t up for download. I replied to the e-mail letting her know the tracks I have for download are there as a sample of what is on the CD.
Her reply… “Send them to me”
BLARRRRRG!
If the CD contains 13 songs, and you can download 11 of those songs, and you like those 11 songs enough to send the artist an e-mail telling them you liked those songs, I think it’s safe to say you would enjoy the CD. SO JUST GET IT!
I also should point out that I don’t get rich off these CD’s. It’s not really about money. I just get this weird feeling some people don’t see worth in the music of indie artists online.
Seven,
I suggest doing what my husband did, which is make the music available streaming ONLY, not downloadable. He’s had excellent CD sales because of people listening then buying. He also prints on every CD “Please do not duplicate this CD. It is our livelyhood” in the hopes that folks will realize that they aren’t screwing the record industry by copying it, they’re screwing a person who relys on CD sales.
Allan had a great one- a cousin of his wrote in his guestbook “Hey Allan, great music- can I have a free CD?” and Allan replied “Sure can- by the way, can you come over and bring your backhoe? I have some land that needs leveling and some landscaping that needs to be done.” (his cousin is a town supervisor with access to heavy equipement) He got the point and ordered the CD.
You need to make it very clear on the site that offers your music for download or streaming that you are SELLING the CD. Don’t offer easy downloads to people- I think it cheapens your product. They expect all of it for free, and that’s not how it works.
I recently bought a CD from a gentleman who offers samples for streaming on his site and it was PLENTY to get me to order the CD. Give that a shot.
SHAME ON YOU, Marc! It doesn’t matter if you are poor! Seven is obviously a big, heartless corporation who deserves to get reamed for the way he treats his employees and the entertainers he promotes. And I even read in the Village Voice once that he gave $1 Million to the Republican Party! That’s right, he practically stuffed $1000 bills in George Bush’s g-string!
once you give something away, people will not be inclined to pay for it thereafter.
I think you will find this to be true here,too.
Why should people buy it when you’re giving it away?
Most people, sadly, don’t care enough about the arts or realize how it is that artists get paid or how expensive it is to make an album.
They see that you have free music and have an “oh well” additude about the stuff they can’t get for free.
so,
your options are:
a) reduce the music to sample sizes.
b) give away the music for free and hope it leads to a fan base when touring and make money that way. From what I understand, touring is where the money is (what little there is).
or
c) add a note as Revtim suggested.
Have you considered selling T-Shirts (check out cafepress.com for an inexpensive method)
Whenever I’ve bought a CD from an independent artist, it’s been pretty inexpensive, typically $10. So why the hell do we willingly pony up $16 or more per CD to the big companies? Just through economies of scale, they should be able to produce CD’s at a lower cost per unit than an independent producer working out of his basement.
It’s a reversal of the normal situation, e.g. mass-produced furniture compared to a hand-crafted piece from an independent cabinetmaker; in this case you expect to pay more for a piece from the independent artist.
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