An interesting article appeared in the New York Times on March 26th. It particicularly caught my eye because the title read "The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor". It revamped how singles were trumping the album sales and it spelled the end of an era. One particicular quote that I liked was "One of the biggest reasons for the shift, analysts say, is that consumers — empowered to cherry-pick — are forgoing album purchases after years of paying for complete CD’s with too few songs they like." That really said something to me. It said the years of record companies forcing artists into releasing entire CDs when they only had 10-15 minutes of strong material, along with the constant pressure to produce a hit, is coming back to bite everyone in the you know where.

There are exceptions of course. Bob Hurwitz at Nonesuch has been defying all "odds" for many years by allowing the artists total creative freedom. He understands that quality will always be attractive to the consumer and continually proves it. This approach to business is much more in line with the artist and the consumer.

One of the amazing things we have seen here at ArtistShare is that when artists are given complete control of their work with no boundaries between them and the fans, great things happen. It is quite a different environment when an ArtistShare Gold participant is sitting in the studio next to the artist. Most often this person has paid a fairly large sum of money without looking for anything in return other than to see the artist do what they do best. I have seen it happen many times and it is a beautiful thing to experience. It is quite different than a company who is paying the artist money to "sell units" for them.

Here is another quote from the article: "Another solution being debated in the industry would transform record labels into de facto fan clubs. Companies including the Warner Music Group and the EMI Group have been considering a system in which fans would pay a fee, perhaps monthly, to “subscribe” to their favorite artists and receive a series of recordings, videos and other products spaced over time."

Well, that sure sounds like ArtistShare to me.

FYI