my favorite discussion
Recently Punk Rock champions Pennywise released their 104th album on Myspace Records...for free. Pennywise, who dissolved their contract with Epitaph Records because Epitaph wasn't excited to release another record, and signed with Myspace Records.
They decided to release their album, Reason to Believe, for free on their myspace page, for anyone and everyone to download. the result? 400,000 downloads, a top 50 single on the Billboard, and getting their message out to more and more people.
I've long supported to the idea of giving an album away for free in order to get more people to hear it, and now i'm in good company with Pennywise, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead to name a few.
Here's the interview with Pennywise discussing the album downloads and stuff.
2 comments:
I've had my album available for free for the last two years, but I don't think anyone has downloaded it :(
I agree with this method, of course. . . .but I think it's a bit disengenuous because all of these bands had been around long enough to create the economy to make this method work.
In other words. . . you never see a first-time band going completely for free. Radiohead had so much money, and probably even owned part of the studio they used, . . so it wasn't really a "risk" for them.
And, yes, if you have 10,000 myspace friends. . it's not really a "risk" either.
I'm just saying, let's keep giving the music away, for sho. . .but the bands who are really succesful with it, were already wildly succesful from . . .you guessed it. . . selling their albums.
Aaron
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