La musique est une histoire sans fin

We often hear from the mouth of self-proclamed prophets that the era of recorded music nears the end, and that sales decline can’t be prevented. If I agree with this fact, as of today’s offer (physical and digital), I don’t agree when they explain that solution resides in live music and T-shirts (to sum up) to compensate sales of recordings. Still, I tjink there are many ways today to sell recorded music or other “things” or “services” related to music… Quick tour d’horizon of what we can SELL (OMG what a terrible word !)

Full, permanent and realtime access to music
This is an access from a PC, but also a mobile, hifi system or car audio system to the whole library of music available on earth. Cultural benefit can’t be discussed, but multiple barriers exist. Financing, territorial issues plague this kind of service nowadays. Still, a service like Spotify is close to achieve it. A mobile version (announced), and being able to import our own library seem to be the 2 biggest steps to overcome.

Controlled channel
It’s been a long fantasy from the musical industry for a while, abandoned just some months ago with DRM removal, a way to control music distribution. Apple does it (with some drawbacks) for its apps delivery platform, and it seems that users are accepting it: use an unique distribution service to download content on a mobile device. But today, it’s only possible on a mobile device (and maybe even only on those from Cupertino) If mobile app can be used to promote an artist (including those developed by NeoMusicStore), it is not yet used to deliver for-pay content, except using iTunes links (which is already good). The album is dead, long live the app

Extending live experience
Most live shows are now recorded. What is done about it ? Rarely anything internally, this is generally licensed to a media. Why shouldn’t put it on sales, for every single performance ? It’s quite easy to do, and still, very few artists do it. In my personal library, I only count one group (The Pixies) whose I bought a concert. As group is selling the complete tour, those attending can either choose the concert they attend, or any other one, if tracklisting is different for example: Nine Inch Nails performs different sets, but even if Trent Reznor is avant-gardist, hist last tour is not (yet ?) available to download. I’d would be a customer if the Nîmes Arenas show and another one including tracks I like which were not performed that night were made available. Beware not to be greedy as bands (or their label) have been with live performances CD. This is an extension, or even an incentive to go and see an artist performing live. Beyond$8/€6, this is probably too expensive. Video, whether it be live or on-demand, can also be part of the package. For having experimented it during the previous months, solutions now exist to stream live or on-demand on a PC or mobile device and make users pay for that.

Selling “social link”
When Joachim Garraud sells a customizable album on its website, not only he’s selling its own music, but also a social link. First he lets everyone decide what should be the tracklisting and layout, then the customer almost makes a donation (as tracks are available on pirate websites). Nowadays, everyone knows how to sell music with no relationship at all through an aggregator or iTunes, whether the artist is wll known or confidential, but we fail at building/selling this social link, which is really important for a long term relationship with the audience. Selling on a direct channel is a good way to enhance this relationship, but collecting emails to offer exclusive content is another one, and building a link within the audience is another thing to think about.

Selling artistic process or material
Imogen Heap is the perfect example of an artist which lets her public involve in the artistic and promotional process for her productions (cf The New Music Business Model: Imogen Heap), Trent Reznor allows musicians to remix his music, others are selling learning lessons. Not everyone will buy music-related products or services, but those who really like music can buy a lot more than CD and merchandising, as long as they get a benefit from that (unfortunately most new ideas are purely marketing gadgets).

All of this is already experimented on NeoMusicStore, and should grab some attention in the coming months as sales decline continue (and I don’t think any Cocktail nor CMX will prevent it). Innovators like Nine Inch Nails won’t have waited for the sales to decline to get millions of dollars of incomes by reiventing themselves, showing there’s no crisis but only some people which don’t know what their market (OMG what a terrible word, again) is.