Photo by James Cridland

The real sticking point of Bylin’s article is that the labels have painted themselves and the artists they “represent” into a dangerous corner: The faster you clock that want-turnover rate, the harder it becomes to make a loyal repeat customer out of a music buyer. If a fan feels compelled to fill 40 gigs of space with entirely new music every 3 months, they will have no choice but to steal. Who can afford that much music at a dollar a track?

The Solution: Music is NOT the Product

In the face of this hyper-shortened attention span, a simple shift needs to be made in the mind of the consumer: The albums and tracks are not the product you’re buying. You’re not a fan of a song or a little round disc, you’re a fan of an artist or band.

It feels a bit ludicrous that something so obvious should be so revolutionary, but again- it’s all about conditioning. We were fans of artists once, maybe from the sixties to the mid-eighties. Then it became all about the chart-toppers. The only way entertainers can fight the song-of-the-minute trend is to turn music buyers (and stealers) into subscribers. Yes, here’s the obvious plug for Matthew Ebel dot net, enjoy.

Seriously, the solution is a subscription.

Beyond Track Sales

Online download stores have tried subscription models and largely failed because they are not selling a product that’s distinctly different from anything we can find on Limewire. They’re only selling tracks. Scratch that, they’re only renting tracks. With a culture already keenly attuned to stealing music, how can you convince them to buy tracks when they find a song they like, let alone every single month?

The solution is to up the ante and offer more than tracks. It’s time for artists to offer themselves as the product. In my own example, Matthew Ebel dot net, fans subscribe because they want more than tracks. They want custom-written songs. They want live recordings- even the not-so-good shows that prove I’m human. They want to support what I do and who I am, not just fill their ears with noise.

The mindset is completely different.

Music itself is an art of expression, but few artists are only able to express themselves via one medium. I know many, many musicians who are accomplished painters, actors, or authors. They are musicians by trade, but their blog posts and web comics should be winning awards. Why aren’t more artists capitalizing on their talents? Don’t they realize that their fans want to support them?

I used to fear asking for money until something was made clear: That fear is part of the short attention span tracks-for-sale mindset. The real music fans don’t want to be customers, they want to be patrons of the arts. They play Rock Band and Guitar Hero because they wish they could do what professional artists do. It’s not about the songs, it’s about the Rock God icon that they become with a little plastic guitar.

Focus

All an artist or label has to do is shift the focus from the music to the musician. Once that focus is clear, the possibilities for a truly sustainable music business open up. The label’s presence will have to fade to the back, just like an artist’s agent or manager. The artist must become both brand and product.

When a fan’s focus changes from tracks to artists, they will be more willing to support that artist through regular contributions. The subscription model only works if they become part of that artist’s world. The fans want to come in.

Let them.