Music At What Price?
For years I have been lobbying for “variable pricing” for music.
99 cents/song is just too expensive. Especially now, during an economic
depression.
Who do you know that can afford to fill up an iPod with say 5,000 songs
“legally” and pay $5,000.00 for that privilege?
http://www.soul-patrol.com/newsletter/2006/news11/paradigm.html
If you know someone who has that kind of disposable income, please give
me their email address, so I can write them and ask them to legally
adopt me.
Some say that the answer to that problem is that music should be “free.”
I don’t believe that either.
I think that the consumer’s perceived value of “free music” is zero.
Most of the people I know who have vast iPod collections of “free music”
only listen to a relatively small number of those tracks. The rest of
the tracks sit in what is the digital equivelent of a trunk stored in a
corner of the attic surrounded by cobwebs.
Music should be priced according to what the marketplace will bear.
If you think it’s “good music” and nobody buys it at 99 cents, then
lower the price.
People will buy what they can afford and what has value to them on an
individual level.
Music is a personal thing.
Great music is even more personal.
If it doesn’t touch my soul, I don’t want it even if it’s free.
I will pay almost anything for music that truly touches my soul.
But if it’s 1/2 price or 1/4 price this week and it’s gonna be full
price next week, which week do you think I’m gonna buy it?
For music that doesn’t “touch my soul”, but I still might like, I may
want to own it, but probably only at a huge discount. It’s no different
than in the physical world. In the past I have purchased CD’s of artists
that I barely like (ex: Patti Patti Labelle, Frankie Beverly & Maze,
etc.)
But I have waited 20 years in some cases to buy those “greatest hit”
collections of artists that I only marginally like and only when I could
get them for $6.99 or $7.99. I have always loved “compilation albums”
because they enable me to sample an artist at a low risk price.
I would generally buy albums like that during the same record store
visit when I have paid $25.00 for a Passport album. When I got home, the
Patti Labelle, Frankie Beverly & Maze, etc. album would get tossed into
the corner, still in the shrink wrap until someone comes over to my
house & wants to hear it. Meanwhile that Passport album gets opened
immediately along with the bottle of 12 year old scotch I brought on my
way home from the store, I put on the headphones, shut the door & listen
to the Passport album 2-3 times, because I have set the CD player on
repeat.
Translated to today’s world that means I might be willing to pay 99
cents for a great track by Nadir (an artist that I really like) and set
it up to automatically play when my PC boots up, but only 9 cents for a
track by Kindred & the Family Soul (an artist that I only marginally
like) that would likely only get played at the request of someone other
than myself.
For you it may be the opposite…
Either way I would think that the people who are responsible for the
long term financial viability of Kindred & the Family Soul would rather
have me pay 9 cents several times over the course of my lifetime to
acquire their music, as opposed to zero? At least this way I would at
least listen to the music a few times, perhaps by pulling up the track
for someone else to hear? (no different than with my Patti Labelle,
Frankie Beverly & Maze, etc. albums.)
The whole idea is for more people to consume more music. Consumption
goes up when prices are cheaper and people will consume whatever has
value to them on a personal level and they will consume it at a rate
(price) based on whatever their personal likes or dislikes are.
I think that the smart people in the music industry are starting to
realize that this concept is probably their best long term salvation.
Just read some of the comments being made in the music blogosphere and
you can see that the tide is turning.
All of those starving artists and economically depressed record labels
should seriously consider this strategy. Especially right now when
people actually have more time to spend at home listening to music,
since millions of people no longer have jobs to leave their house for
and certainly are in need of something CHEAP that is guaranteed to bring
a smile to their faces.
“Less is not more, more is more…”
Bob Davis
(Bob Davis & Soul Patrol.net contributes timely music industry information for Earwax Digital. The opinion expressed here does not necessarily represent the opinion of Earwax Records.)
