I like music. Well, most days. In today’s do it yourself (DIY) culture, more artists are taking control of their work, brining it from concept to distribution on their own terms. On the plus side, this gives everyone a fair shot at doing what they love to do and a greater sense of accomplishment. The drawback? This gives anyone the opportunity to gain exposure.
As much as people have become aware of how beneficial and empowering the DIY culture can be, even more people on the other side of the fence are figuring ways to take these do it yourselfers for every penny they can. The internet is without a doubt the mainstay tool for finding valuable resources to completing your coveted project. However, even though some of these websites could be your ticket to star-dom, just as many could be nothing but a hoax out to take you and your music for all it is worth.
I had a friend once named Max who claimed he had the key to being a successful musician. According to him, all one had to book a lot of shows and circulate self-recorded music all over the internet, for free. Max was a visionary, wake-and-bake kind of musician who practiced guitar as frequently as he did his laundry. There was some sense to his philosophy, but in order for one to gain any kind of monetary reward for their music, they would have to be noticed and picked up by a significant label. It’s obvious that any artist would want to gain recognition for their music. You worked hard, so why not get paid for it?
I investigated a number of music download sites where music is available to download for a fee. This is what I found:
Napster.com
I go to Napster.com and see that before I am allowed to do anything at all I must first give them a credit card number. Didn’t this used to be free? For more information read, “Why Nobody Likes Me: The Lars Ulrich Story.”
I learned to type on a Macintosh; it was in the sixth grade and the screens were still tinted green. Since then Apple has exploded their image into the trendy chic that anyone who wants to be anybody has to have a piece of. This makes me nervous; any product or movement this many people have fallen in love without couldn’t possibly happen without a fair-to-lethal amount of subliminal brainwashing.
Until recently I have been a proud boycotter of the iUniverse and have successfully avoided handing over any of my money to Mr. Jobs. In my life I have hopped from one PC application to the next, never once finding any reason to settle with an Apple. For this article I decided to give iTunes a shot – but only because it was free. However, upon entering the iTunes store, I couldn’t find anything about how an independent musician could upload their own music for sale. I Googled this query and discovered that iTunes is having enough problems with big music labels that trying to even negotiate with individuals would me more complicated than necessary.
Other online criticisms claim that iTunes screws with the compression of files and causes the music to play at different qualities depending on the medium it is transferred to. Plus, there are limitations on which of these mediums the purchased music can be put on. While this may be good for the musicians by allowing them to control the distribution of their tunes, it could ultimately affect that artist’s reputation.
Getting onto iTunes seems to first require working through an agent that already works through with iTunes. This seems entirely too complicated, but I found that cdbaby.com is an outlet that will do just that. More on cdbaby can be found later in this article.
Garageband is a website that is owned and run by the company iLike (what’s with all these damn lowercase ‘i’s?) which uses listening habits of registered users to determine what is popular and then in turn suggest new music that they may like. This seems similar to Pandora.com (a personal favorite of mine) except that it also refers listeners to independent artists who upload to Garageband.
Garageband appears to be free for musicians to upload to the site. However, if the uploaded songs stand to gain any attention the musician is subjected to a twenty dollar fee to enter into a “contest.” Prizes for this contest include “airplay and exposure.” As to how much exposure an artist will receive is unclear, but I would guess it has something to do with the iLike referral system.
Cdbaby.com
Cdbaby seems to be one of the more promising methods that I came across. This website is somewhat confusing at first, most of the “how to” and “musician’s guide” links turned out to be banner ads. Once I hit the right button though, I had a very smooth time figuring this site out.
How it works: Send cdbaby.com thirty five dollars and at least five copies of your CD. They do the rest. You outfit your band’s profile with whatever information you feel the rest of the world needs to know about you and cdbaby handles the rest. Your CD is available to be bought online and in one of 2900 retail locations. Or, fans can purchase and download the songs right from the website.
After the one time $35 dollar fee, cdbaby takes a 9% cut from all download purchases and $4 off of all CD purchases. You get paid every Monday through whatever pre-arranged method you chose.
It is important to note that cdbaby.com will sell your CD, but they will not produce it. While they do not require anything shrink-wrapped or super-polished, it is required that the CD you send them is self produced. It is important to consider the hassles and costs of shipping your product to cdbaby.
Burnlounge
Burnlounge seems to be the most independent thing out there. It takes the form of the old P2P file sharing systems where both the sender and the recipient must use the same download application. The Burnlounge application allows both musician and listener to create personal pages that reflect their music tastes.
Burnlounge allows musicians to create a retail store using various tools within their application. Music is then uploaded and put on sale from the same application. Technically, it’s free. Burnlounge takes a small percentage of sale profits to keep themselves in business. Users can then option to purchase an add-on pack that gives the retailers more versatility designing their store.
And no matter what, just remember that your biggest fan is your mother. That is until she actually listens to what you've produced.