Brian Mazzaferri, lead singer of independent rock back I Fight Dragons, has made a post on We Are Listening about how he and his band made $10,000 in 48 hours by selling ‘Lifetime Membership USB Drives’.
The band, which is only 9 months old, has focused on building a fanbase and giving their fans lots of free music through their mailing list. When they reached the point where they were starting to think how they could monetize off their music, instead of going the traditional (and outdated) route of recording an album and selling it, they came up with an idea that would not only give their fans a lot more, but them also.
The idea they came up with was to sell ‘Lifetime Membership USB Drives’ which were basically USB drives preloaded with all of the music they’ve ever released and they guarantee the owner a free digital copy of anything they ever release, as well as free admission to any live show of ours now and forever. And there were only 100 made.
Needless to say, they all went quickly, but the question is; why?
To kick off our “re-launch”, here’s a humorous (but very true) article from Bob Baker in which he gives musicians a 7 step plan to ruin their music career. I’ve written out the 7 steps below, but head over to Music Think Tank to read the full article.
Give away your personal power.
Turn marketing, promotion and sales into a huge burden.
Be fearful of being perceived as a greedy, capitalist pig.
Use a lack of time, money and connections as your biggest excuse.
Market yourself to the faceless masses using traditional big media.
Promote yourself sporadically and only when it’s urgent.
Know that everyone owes you something simply because you exist.
You’ve probably noticed some strange activity here at GrindEFX over the past few weeks, this was due to an attack on our server. It has taken a while, but we are back up and running now and ready to pick up where we left off. If you received any warnings about malware or viruses on the site, don’t worry, we have given it a thorough check and it is now clean as a whistle.
Apologies for the lack of communication throughout all of this, we’ve now moved the site to a new server and are hopeful this will not happen again. Thanks for your patience!
A few months ago Spotify introduced the ability to purchase songs and albums directly from them, though it was a little long-winded and hard to find. Users had to right-click on songs to see the “Buy” option before being directed to partner 7digital’s site to complete the purchase.
There is now a clear “Buy” button next to all songs and albums available to purchase and the transaction process is pretty much the same as iTunes.
Despite the lack of success music subscription services have had, entrepreneurs seem to be lining up to have shot at it. We’re hearing about new subscription services every week, and none of them have a USP. They all seem to have the same business model – pay a high monthly fee for a very limited access to music.
The latest company to try their hand at it is satellite television company Sky. Sky’s plan is to charge £7.99 a month for unlimited streaming and 1 album download (or 10 songs) – downloading more songs will cost extra.
Details on the new service are sketchy, some sources say they have partnered with Universal, while others say they have struck deals with all the majors and a number of indie labels.
If you don’t know the background, basically over the past week Lily Allen has publicly expressed her distain for file-sharers. Following a huge backlash from her initial blog post, she went back and forth with commenters and pretty much ended up making a fool of herself and deleting her blog all together (if you want more info head over to TechDirt, Mike Masnick made a number of posts picking apart Lily’s arguments).
And of course, you can download this song free here.
I often get asked what websites and blogs I recommend for music business topics. We don’t have a blogroll on the site so I thought I’d make a post with a list of my favourite sites. Check them out and bookmark them!
It’s always nice to hear success stories from artists who put out their own indie releases, but this year I was able to witness first hand, and be a part of, such a project. I want to share with you how hip hop artist Cambatta and DJ Nice released and promoted ‘The Visionary’.
In 2008 Cambatta was an unsigned artist who was was trying to get his name out there, particularly on the mixtape circuit. With the help of old school friend DJ Nice, he decided to start work on his debut release, titled ‘The Visionary’.
DJ Nice was already an established name on the mixtape scene as both a DJ and producer, and with his experience and contacts Cambatta was granted access to many talented producers and artists to work with.
Before the album was released, Cambatta and DJ Nice did a number of things to create a buzz. They released a few collaborations with more well-known artists for free in order to raise Cambatta’s profile. These songs made appearances on many top hip hop websites, enabling Cambatta to reach a wide audience.
British pop singer Lily Allen made a post on her Myspace blog (I know right?) yesterday begging her fans to buy CDs. Her argument? Well… she doesn’t really have one.
“The internet is the most amazing thing, but it should be OUR thing,” she said, “and ironically piracy is just playing into the hands of the corporations. What these artists and creators do, they do for the love of it, I know its hard because money is scarce but we have to inject money back into these areas. It’s not fair to steal peoples material,I know it’s art and it has no physical value but even Shakespeare had shares in The Globe Theatre. People will lose their jobs.”
This sounds like something an artist would have said 5 years ago, are artists really still complaining about piracy? Come on Lily, it’s not even cute anymore, it’s just sad. The Internet is going nowhere, it’s time for you and your good friends at the major labels to update your business model.
The funny thing is, Lily Allen actually has a very strong and loyal fanbase and she is good at connecting with them. She could easily drop from her label and and put out her own product like many other big artists have succeeded in doing. It sounds like she’s been brainwashed to believe she needs a record label to survive, either that or she’s just too lazy to open her eyes and see that the industry she was once in no longer exists.
I saw Mike Masnick post this on TechDirt a few days ago but only got around to reading it this morning. This is a paper written by Bas Grasmayer as part of the research for his thesis on the future of music distribution. Bas analyses 5 musical releases that used new business models; Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows‘, Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Ghosts I-IV‘, Groove Armada’s ‘Drop The Tough‘, Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse’s ‘Dark Night of the Soul‘ and Mos Def’s ‘The Ecstatic‘.
After analysing each one he draws the following conclusions:
What does NOT work (well)
Not going all the way. Fans love free music and so do people that are not familiar with the artist’s work, but if you’re going to give something away then really give it away. If you don’t, you won’t get the attention you were hoping and might even disappoint some fans instead of connecting with them.
Brian Mazzaferri, lead singer of independent rock back I Fight Dragons, has made a post on We Are Listening about how he and his band made $10,000 in 48 hours by selling ‘Lifetime Membership USB Drives’.
To kick off our “re-launch”, here’s a humorous (but very true) article from Bob Baker in which he gives musicians a 7 step plan to ruin their music career. I’ve written out the 7 steps below, but head over to 
You’ve probably noticed some strange activity here at GrindEFX over the past few weeks, this was due to an attack on our server. It has taken a while, but we are back up and running now and ready to pick up where we left off. If you received any warnings about malware or viruses on the site, don’t worry, we have given it a thorough check and it is now clean as a whistle.
Despite the lack of success music subscription services have had, entrepreneurs seem to be lining up to have shot at it. We’re hearing about new subscription services every week, and none of them have a USP. They all seem to have the same business model – pay a high monthly fee for a very limited access to music.
It’s always nice to hear success stories from artists who put out their own indie releases, but this year I was able to witness first hand, and be a part of, such a project. I want to share with you how hip hop artist 
British pop singer Lily Allen made a post on her 
I saw Mike Masnick post this on 
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