Don’t Trust Any1
What do Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Ashlee Simpson and Goldfrapp have in common? They don’t trust their fans. More precisely, they don’t trust their fans on the internet, or how else can it be explained that they did not offer full-length streams of their songs prior to release?
Coldplay did it right: giving their single “Violet Hill” away for free on the internet is currently one of the best ways to attract attention, generate an interest in the album and look fantastic while doing it.
Most artists are not directly involved in the marketing of their songs, so it would be wrong to blame Ashlee Simpson herself for ruining her own “listening party” by only offering 30 second sound snippets. Their managements and the record companies however surely deserve any criticism thrown in their direction. Because what this approach does is:
- damage the artist’s reputation. Anyone not using the internet per se does not have any chance any more to be successful. Anyone using the internet on their terms, not understanding these are useless in cyberspace, risks being ridiculed and sidelined.
- damage the reputation of websites like imeem or last.fm. Coming back to the Ashlee Simpson example from above, it’s thoroughly disappointing to just find the usual short snippets (which are way too short to decide whether you like a song or not - different song? I don’t think so!). Also, what is the appeal of those websites if they offer the same (and maybe less?) than the usual shops?
- clearly state you don’t trust neither your product nor your audience. If you were convinced your album/video/whatever you want to sell is good enough, then listening to/watching it in full would encourage people to buy it, not decide they’d rather not spend 15€ on it.
Unfortunately, the conclusion to the situation above is that it’s all about the money. It seems some people have not understood that providing free listening to full songs is not, as it appears on first glance, a wasted opportunity. People will go out to buy the album if they have been listening to it for a while and decided they liked it.
It’s completely naive to believe anyone is going to spend between 15 and 20€ on music he or she doesn’t have a clue about - sorry, but if you are still living in such a world, then goodbye to you: because the future is not yours. The future is the internet, whether you like it or not.
