How do small bands use file-sharing for profit and hype?

musicismylife78

You often hear this as an argument against illegal downloading. Sonic Youth even weighed in and suggested that the Radiohead model of "name your own price" and or "releasing music online for free" was bad because for smaller bands its an impossible standard to set. The argument goes: Younger bands cant afford to give music away for free because they arent huge like Radiohead, and unlike Radiohead they arent multimillionaires. They dont have a huge infrastructure to be able to pull off an In Rainbows style album release either. Sonic Youth also suggested that the Radiohead "model" of releasing music takes too much time and effort and work and that it takes away from the music.

So what do you make of that?

It makes logical sense to me that yes, small bands, bands who are young and just starting out and who dont have a huge fan base, that for them pulling off an "In Rainbows" style release would be hard, maybe even impossible. Young bands like that most likely need every penny they can scrape together, and releasing an album for free wouldnt make too much sense if that was their goal. Additionally, as Radiohead, is undoubtably one of the biggest bands in the world, they have the fanbase, the start up cash, and the personnel and management to pull off such a massive scheme.

That said, I was in a dorm with someone who ended up forming a band, and the band actually draws a fair amount of people when they play. Anyways, this band they are a new band formed within the last few years, and the last few record releases, they have given away their music for free. On their website you can download all 3 albums of theirs. I have no idea what their ambitions are, if they want to be the next big huge IT band, but I was really impressed when I saw that they were doing this this way. And it proves young bands can pull it off.

I think bands have to realize times have changed. As a person who attends shows alot, I can tell you, at least at a specific venue I frequent, bands set up merch tables, and most of the time what sells isnt the CD's, its the tshirts and posters and whatnot. I dont know if that means anything, thats just what I have noticed.

So if you are a young band starting out, can you do the "radiohead thing" and still be profitable? Is my college friends band sort of the way of the future, small bands releasing music for free because they know people dont buy cd's anymore?

How do small bands take advantage of the fact that millions maybe even billions of people download illegally?

Can anyone get their music available for download on the torrent sites? Like if I start a band tomorrow and we record songs, can I post a link to said songs on BT Torrent? How does one go about that?

Seems to me, small bands may have a hard time pulling off a "radiohead" but I think, someone, somewhere has to come up with a way for them, small young bands to be able to use filesharing to their advantage.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Most small artists I know still go by the traditional route towards distributing their music. They save up and book studio/mastering time, then invest in having a run of good quality CDs printed. They sell these albums or EPs as gig merchandise. Sometimes they make a sampler CD and just burn off a few copies from their home machine, and distribute them for free with contact details included. If bands are serious about looking for a bigger profile, they hire a PR firm who produce a press pack to send around to A&R and/or (often independent) record companies. That's how it's done in the main, among friends of mine.

I do know a young artist who is "signed" to a label/website that distributes albums for free. This kid has all his equipment paid for by mummy and daddy and is a spoilt little tosser who can afford to delude himself that all music should be for free, all the time. He makes insufferable electronica with pretentious titles that you could only give away. I have to say he's in the minority. I once played a gig with an astonishingly brilliant singer-songwriter in London, who had albums for sale. He announced, "I'm selling them for £5 each, and I would sell them for £10 each so I could break even, but Thom Yorke says all music is free nowadays so I can't. The fucking cunt." That got a huge cheer.

I think the death of the record company is greatly exaggerated and the rise of the PR company as middle-man is greatly underestimated.

pretext

This doesn't really answer you questions. But, at least in the folk community, a lot of artists are appealing to their, albeit small, fanbases to pay for an album far prior to release in order to cover the recording, etc. costs. I think most of the profit still comes from shows. However, it does ensure that they can keep getting new music out there. Also, selling discs at the shows, even if on a tiny label, the artist sees a far bigger cut from each sale.

Now, this obviously isn't a feasible for an artist that doesn't have some kind of fanbase already, whether it be built from shows or prior releases.

Oh, and music, even though I don't often respond, I really dig your posts. Always thought-provoking.

JOEJOEJOE

I think that a young band should give away music for free in order to entice people to give them a listen. Once they build-up a fanbase, they can start to charge since they have hopefully proven their worth.

Starting a band is like starting a new business; you probably won't make any $$ right away, and if you want to build a fanbase, you need to spend some $$ to do so.

FinsburyParkCarrots

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I think that a young band should give away music for free in order to entice people to give them a listen. Once they build-up a fanbase, they can start to charge since they have hopefully proven their worth.

Starting a band is like starting a new business; you probably won't make any $$ right away, and if you want to build a fanbase, you need to spend some $$ to do so.

There's a big problem with this, though. A lot of gig promoters don't pay smaller bands until they can bring in a reliable fanbase to gigs. Selling CDs at gigs is often a band's only way to cover expenses in the meantime. Okay, a sampler EP could be given away at gigs, but not full albums. An album costs a fair bit of money to record, master and print up. Not every act records a CD in their bedroom. You could invest a lot of money in recording only to give it away for nothing at one gig, and not have the money even to get to the next venue. You end up hand-to-mouth and that's no future for any artist, bar someone who has no intention of giving up their dayjob.

JOEJOEJOE

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

JOEJOEJOE wrote:

I think that a young band should give away music for free in order to entice people to give them a listen. Once they build-up a fanbase, they can start to charge since they have hopefully proven their worth.

Starting a band is like starting a new business; you probably won't make any $$ right away, and if you want to build a fanbase, you need to spend some $$ to do so.

There's a big problem with this, though. A lot of gig promoters don't pay smaller bands until they can bring in a reliable fanbase to gigs. Selling CDs at gigs is often a band's only way to cover expenses in the meantime. Okay, a sampler EP could be given away at gigs, but not full albums. An album costs a fair bit of money to record, master and print up. Not every act records a CD in their bedroom. You could invest a lot of money in recording only to give it away for nothing at one gig, and not have the money even to get to the next venue. You end up hand-to-mouth and that's no future for any artist, bar someone who has no intention of giving up their dayjob.

Good point.....I reckon its a chicken/egg scenario. Do you think people buy a new band's cd after seeing them live, or do you think people get enticed to see a band after coming across their songs on a website, sampler cd, etc.?