10 Innovations in Music Distribution

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Korean hip hop group Epik High chose to distribute their latest release, Map The Soul, in two different packages. The digital download contains only the songs from the CD and lacks the accompanying book. You can find this version of the album exclusively on iTunes. For fans willing to pay more, a "book-album" package has been released that includes various writings, photographs, and pieces of art to augment the music. The two options demonstrate that Epik High is aware of their audience’s varying preferences. The digital download will most likely appeal to young, casual fans who have no use for a CD while the physical copy comes with appealing extras for more serious fans of the band.

PUSH Technology

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Chicago based progressive rock band Umphrey’s McGee used PUSH technology to set up a pre-order campaign. The more people who ordered the new album Mantis in advance of its release date, the more unreleased bonus content would be made available to everyone. Now that the album is out, an exclusive website is accessible only to fans who pop Mantis into their computers. The CD acts as a kind of digital key, granting fans access to various Umphrey’s goodies — live recordings, videos, digital booklets and unreleased tracks. The bonus PUSH content has been updated every month since the album’s release.

Physical Objects  source

Electronic pop artist Max Tundra has expanded the distribution sphere to include … a can of soup. For about $19, fans of Tundra receive a can of kosher chicken soup, which includes a digital download access code. The code allows fans to access high quality MP3 downloads from a special distribution website. In addition to the “new kosher format” album, fans who purchase the soup can also gain access to a digital compilation of other artist’s covers and remixes Tundra’s music — and they gain access to soup!

Another band playing with the idea of releasing albums as physical objects (that are not, you know, actual records) is psychedelic indie pop group Of Montreal. Their last album, Skeletal Lamping, was released as the traditional CD and LP formats as well as such unorthodox objects as t-shirts, a button set, wall decals, a tote bag, and a paper lantern. The formats, dubbed The Skeletal Lamping Collection, include a digital download code for MP3s of the music. We have seen the future of rock and roll and it is a paper lantern.

Creative Commons Distribution

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The Creative Commons License grants artists the ability to waive and retain certain rights to their music, usually granting free use of their music for non-commercial purposes. In 2008, Nine Inch Nails experimented with distribution under Creative Commons License, opting to distribute much of their album Ghosts I-IV for free on their website. The album was presented for download on the group’s website with no prior promotion or public hype. Fans were presented with different options on how to receive their copy of the 36-track release:

• Tracks one through nine were available totally free of charge to anyone who visited the Nine Inch Nails website.
• For $5, you could receive the entire album.
• The ultra-deluxe edition, retailing for $300, included two music CDs containing the album, a data disc containing the multi-track files of the songs, a Blu-Ray disc of the album in high definition stereo with an art slide show playing along with the music, a 48-page hardcover book, a 4-LP set on 180 gram vinyl, and two limited-edition giclee art prints signed by lead singer Trent Reznor.
• The multi-track files, included with the ultra-deluxe edition, allow fans the opportunity to remix all of the songs. Owners of the disc hold all of the elements of every song on the album — every track may be modified or replaced at will. Nine Inch Nails is essentially encouraging fans to use the music in whatever creative fashion they please, so long as they do not commercially benefit from that use.

Gogoyoko

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Gogoyoko is a revolutionary music distribution site that enables fans to buy music directly from the artist. With no label executives acting as middlemen, major artists can claim 100% of the profits from their online music sales. The Gogoyoko service was created and is maintained by artists and claims to operates in their best interest. Furthermore, the service offers artists 40% of the revenue generated from ads displayed while users stream their music. Musicians can either direct fans to the Gogoyoko site or build their own music store applet. These stores holds all the songs an artist wants to sell, enables on-demand streaming, and features easy copy/paste implementation. The site claims that dropping your music store on your website or Myspace page is as easy as embedding a YouTube video. Several well-known artists already use the bleeding edge system, including Iceland-based Sigur Ros. The band made all of their music available on Gogoyoko — allowing fans to stream their songs from anywhere or even to embed them on their own pages.

Nostalgic Promotion

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Sometimes the best promotion strategy is to use completely outdated technology. Pop-punk band Four Year Strong released a CD last month entitled Explains It All. The album consisted entirely of energetic covers of old 90′s mega-hits such as Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” and Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”. In order to stay consistent with the 90′s theme, the band even created an Angelfire promotional website that hearkens back to the Web’s dark ages. Fans are transported back in time to 1999, where the Internet was filled with .gif images, flaming text, a guest book, frames, and, of course, MIDI background music. The website puts fans in a total 90′s state of mind, which the band hopes will sell fans on their throwback venture.

Another band embracing the thrill of old tech is The Cassettes from Washington, DC. The band took their name literally, self-releasing their latest album, Countach, in a limited edition of 100 hand-numbered cassette tapes. Keeping with the era of cassette tape dominance, the album is named Countach after the model of Lamborghini made from 1974 to 1989. Although the album is also available as MP3s, the cassette contains an exclusive bonus track, collectible car and horse toys, and all that tape hiss you’ve been missing for years. Sure, cool kids may listen to vinyl but cooler kids listen to tapes.

Fan-Elected Opening Acts

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On August 21, 2009, California band Cold War Kids hosted a free outdoor festival in Long Beach, CA. The concert featured some 25 local bands competing in a battle of the bands for the grand prize of opening for Cold War Kids a much larger concert later that night. The crowd was given wooden tokens to drop into the open guitar cases of their favorite acts. The band with the most tokens by the end of the event was declared the winner. The free outdoor event was an excellent way to expose young local music fans to new unsigned bands. At the same time, the event brought lots of positive media exposure to Cold War Kids.

Punisher: Warzone Contest

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In 2008, cinematic publisher Lionsgate held a contest in which unsigned bands competed for the chance to have a song featured in Punisher: Warzone. In addition, the band’s song would hold a spot on the Punisher: Warzone soundtrack, with proportional royalties paid to the band. Any unsigned act was allowed to register for the contest. Once registered, the band was required to submit one song to the program, which was then featured in a player on the contest’s website. It was up to the band to get votes any way they could. In the end, the 500 bands with the highest votes were advanced to the final round in which their songs were reviewed by a panel of music and movie producers. The winner of the contest, a band by the name of 7 Days Away, has received significant radio play and interview exposure following their inclusion in the movie. In addition to the grand prize winner, 20 runner-ups were selected and offered a variety of different prizes — including deals with other movies, radio play, and more.

Individual Concert Downloads

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Concerts can be thrilling and many of us have wished for the opportunity to relive the magic of those nights over and over again. Pearl Jam has made this wish a reality in a clever way. Members of the band’s fan club, "The Ten Club", have the ability to visit the band’s website several days after seeing a Pearl Jam concert and download a complete digital recording of their concert. For members that missed a concert on the tour, they can access a directory containing digital recordings of every concert on the tour. The band refers to these recordings as bootlegs — they come with no DRM and can be easily transferred to CD or MP3 player. Each download costs around $10 and is a high quality recording, so you can listen to the cool twist they put on their songs at your concert in excellent CD quality. Pearl Jam has announced that they will continue the bootleg program for their entire 2009 tour. The concerts will be available in three formats: MP3, FLAC and ‘Burn on Demand’.

Topping that, previously mentioned Umphrey’s McGee has had instantaneous recordings available in CD immediately following the show, a process they’ve been doing for nearly 6 years now. They are also available for download with 48-72 hours at umlive.net.

Music Widgets

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Legendary shock-rock group Gwar recently released a band-themed widget in promotion of their new album Lust in Space. The widget features a stream of the band’s new single "Let Us Slay", and a portal through which the new album can be purchased. Photographs from the album’s photo shoot, new pieces of artwork, merchandise, and tour dates are also found on the widget. Fans can even add the widget to their blogs in support of the new album. Blabbermouth.net reports that the widget will automatically update with new music, tour dates, blog posts, and other goodies from the band over time. In effect, the widget is a small capsule of the band’s current career which can actually take the place of a traditional website. The widget may even prove to be more effective than a website or Myspace page because of its (ex)portability. Fans of the band can post the widget anywhere HTML posting is allowed. Such community action could succeed in creating new fans and summoning the attention of old ones.