Is the album dead? @ New Music Strategies: Meet the Music “Content Product”

by Matt @ Kurb on August 26, 2008

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http://newmusicstrategies.com/2008/08/21/is-the-album-dead/

@dubber over at http://newmusicstrategies.com asked if the album was dead.

And I said put it in the ground, and called out for the “content product” to take over.

@powerweirdo aka Julian Boland at http://audiblehype.com asked me if I had more details and I guess that’s when I realised the conceptualisation of the “content product” was more of an anti statement than anything else, but it was meant to loosen up thought around how digital content will be provided to fans/users for retail or otherwise.

In the internet marketing field, there is a concept known as the “information product”. Again this term really just serves to illustrate that you can use information as a digital commodity – whether that information is delivered as text (an ebook), audio or a podcast, or video . . . and you can leverage it otherwise, one of the most popular internet marketing techniques is to use the free download of the ebook or “information product” to secure voluntary email addresses from which to build the marketer’s “list” - Users who have opted in to receive mail on continuing offers from the marketer.

Being these techniques are the cornerstone of modern internet marketing and that as music moves to the internet, I’m seeking to apply those ideas that already have traction in internet marketing appropriate ways to musicians effort to monteize and build revenue, I was quick to analyse how a musicians content fits into this model and the concept of the “content product”.

As I’ve said before on this blog, the last time I saw the rule book it was flying out the window, you need to know what you’re doing and why before you go chasing some traditional concept of how the music industry should be.

From my discussion of the “digital revolution” during my talk I did start to figure a few things.

It’s the distinct lack of successful new strategies that is allowing the old album model, that most accept cant last, to continue. The moment a new model can be proven to generate superior revenue, the album as we knew it is toast.

The quantities that make up the concept of the album have been set by technological and economic constraints, in the era of the LP the album was born as they were able to fit up to 23 minutes on each side of a vinyl. With a CD that increased to 74, and then 80 minutes.

But now we’re in a digital network, hard drive to server to hard drive, technology and economy are less of a constraint to access and quantity, and as media converges, rather than media that separates the formats (video is for seeing, music is for hearing, software is for using, words are for reading etc.) they come together as “digital content”.

That is, it’s all digital, and it’s all delivered online, so there’s no reason why a product such as an album or collection of recorded works should stand alone without the added value of additional related content. Video, Ebooks and “info products”, Podcasts, Galleries, Ringtones, Software, widgets and 3^rd party apps.

But my whole point around the “content product” is not that because we can increase the value of a product through delivering convergent digital media it will kill the album.

Not at all.

It’s not that the value of digital copies of content is in general decline, and like the “information product” authors and content providers will have to look at ways to leverage this content for more connected and engaged fan interaction.

It’s all about traction for modern business models.

No one will ever tell you that you can’t sell your music. But guys like Radiohead and NIN are already making money in smarter and more engaging ways and it’s just going to get harder to create and convert engagement on your $10 selection of your latest half an hour of music when guys like radiohead are offering their music for next to nothing.

This is what I mean about propositions, branding and engagment. Radiohead’s proposition (pay what you like) is better than yours. Radiohead’s branding is better than yours (They’re the big band thats okay for clever liberals to like) and they’re engagement is better than yours (They’re making more money than ever).

Do you have a chance against Radiohead? Of course you do. With people who like your music more than Radiohead’s. That doesn’t mean they’ll pay for it if they’re not used to the idea.

So what will kill the album is the needs of artists to engage fans more meaningfully.

As I mentioned, this comes off the back of my recent online music promotion presentation, and when Dubber asked “Is the album dead?” that was a good point to move on from where my thinking had arrived at.

CD Baby and Tunecore still provide price breaks for albums. CD Baby is a flat fee whatever your release, while tunecore is 99c for songs per outlest and 9.99c for albums. So if your album has more than 10 songs on it, you’re getting a much better deal.

CD disc albums of course are still popular, and you’d be mad to turn your back on this revenue but kurb’s bi line is “preparing artists for the future.”

Not “preparing artists for the 90’s”.
The future of the music industry is not about selling bits of plastic or even selling copies of content. Although you should still be attempting to carry this off in the short to mid term, in the long term, it’s about providing valued experience for fans and users.

Fans and users are looking to become engaged and connected by valuable and authentic experience. So not only does that mean artists providing a deeper range of digital media content are able to engage more deeply, but those who are providing valuable interactions are creating more value as part of the attention economy that can be leveraged for revenue.

So again, no one is going to stop you releasing your one “album” per year, and for now, the album “bundling” phenomenon that has been part of the music industry for over 60 years since the LP vinyl was patented, is still a great way to add value by selling people extra songs they don’t know if they want.

In the same way an album allows you to sell people extra songs they dont know they want, the “content product” bundle is superior because now you’re also giving them video, text, images, software, and interactive content etc. that they didn’t know they wanted as well, but sure seems like a good deal.

But those artists who arrange their content and content products for engagement rather than mounting one major launch behind one flagship content product that is “the album” are likely to have more success to developing relationships and interactions with fans.

You maybe of the school of “love me, love my website, buy my album, thank you very much, see you next year!” when your next orchestrated deluge of hype decends, but believe me, it’s going to be the artists who have taken and run with the concept of the “content product” and constructed content products for maximum engegement.

Rather than one album per year, or 6 or 18 months, you’re committed to your fans and producing new content products every month. Or every 2 months or 2 weeks, whatever is suitable for the engegement you can realistically maintain.

Because everytime you create a new product, you’re engaging and developing relationships with fans – whether its a retail product or a free “attention economy” based product. You are creating engaging secondary marketing content and developing fresh propositions which draw in new audiences and engae new users and fans.

And whereas artists who can only deliver one highly developed content product or “album” on the back of one launch campaign will just not be able to maintain audience engagement and traction in the same way.

And in years to come, it will the artists that truly engage and build their brand that survive and those who relied on an increasingly irrelevant economic paradigm out of tradition who suffer wondering why it didn’t quite work out.

Dubber also alluded to the inevitable wave of C2C that will follow the consolidation of the digital revolution.

C2C refers to “consumer to consumer” business models.

That is as we move to the content product and deeper audience engagement, the next step is to give up control to your fans and to let them be the ones to deconstruct and reconstruct and mash up your content into any format or product they see fit for monetization, and then take a commission.

Are you ready? Kurb promotion is preparing artists for the future!!

Email me, Matt @ kurbpromo@gmail.com to talk about our online management and revenue development options.
Hey, did anyone notice how I was totally joining the conversation, bouncing off blogs and tweets and eveything?

Twitter is growing on me.

http://www.twitter.com/mattNZ

Kurb is an online promotion company specializing in digital music marketing and artist management.

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