Managing the ART of Free Music

Recently, T-Pain released his free mix-tape Stoic, with 22 tracks of new music for his fans with features from artists such as Pitbull, Travie McCoy and others, which represents a strong return to the music scene for him.  What makes this return most notable, is that it comes by the way of a free mix-tape, which can be listened to in full on sites like HipHopDX or downloaded, for free from sites such as Livemixtapes.com.

Back in August, the topic of how digital media is impacting the music industry was covered in my post Music and the Digital Movement, and the discussion around how artists revenue is affected by utilizing digital distribution in favor of cd or album sales.  In follow up to this, the release of free music by well-known artists such as T-Pain brings the new movement into greater focus and causes us to examine how the artist can be benefit from this activity.  Obviously, there is no front-end revenue to be made, so why do it?

This topic was also covered one of my favorite sites, Music Think Tank, where the article Why You Should Give Your Music Away for Free, describes how the advent of digital music is devastating legacy and traditional record labels.  It explores services such as Spotify, my personal favorite, which provide an “all you can consume” for one subscription price model.  Not only does it allow users to access all of their favorite music and create playlists, which can actually consist of entire albums, they can also share their activity on Facebook with friends and share music.  Obviously, users are not going to continue to purchase individual CDs when they can gain unlimited access to music via this type of service.  For consumers this creates a winning solution, especially for proclaimed music lovers and for independent artists, it’s much easier to get music placed on these services.  The downside would be the payout is much less than the artist would make through pay-per services such as iTunes or Amazon, but this again confirms why artists must seek to be diverse in their revenue streams and not rely solely on music sales.  As we’ve also discussed, live performances and the merchandising that corresponds should not be underestimated in terms of relevant income. 

As the digital music landscape continues to progress and evolve, it will be increasingly more important for artists to re-think the traditional way of doing business and operate a bit outside of the box.  In a time when most consumers get their music either through subscription service or through pirated sources, why not just let the fans have the music they love for free.  Also, it can provide the artist an opportunity to test the market and see how their music is performing from a consumer perspective and utilize this knowledge to guide their future projects. 

Giving away music for free, while not profitable up front, can certainly provide artists greater insight into the tastes of their fans and overall consumers and help them make more strategic decisions for music products they plan to charge for. 

These are just my thoughts and I’m anxious to hear yours.  Until then, do you and creatively mind your business.