David Byrne, former Talking Heads front man and the writer/director of one of my all time favorite movies, is openly musing on SpiralFrog and what it means for artists and digital music sales, from a different angle. "if you're not an artist with one of these majors then you might have trouble getting your track available on these sites in the first place, and even then, if your stuff isn't hot, the advertiser who is paying you will eventually balk at funding fringe stuff that doesn't draw (the right) consumers to their products. The advertiser holds the purse strings, and will naturally pull the other strings too, despite what they may claim, so this model puts the control of what music is available back in the hands of the majors and their corporate cronies."
Byrne makes a great point. I was listening to an interview with Weblogs founder Jason Calacanis today where he called YouTube to the carpet (again) and forecasted bleak things for the upstart's future. His point was much like Byrne's; Advertisers will demand some editorial control over what they wrap their advertisements around. Calacanis and Byrne are right, from slightly different angles.
I've been predicting that the SpiralFrog model is doomed, from a fan angle, before it gets off the ground but, this taps in yet another coffin nail.
[via David Byrne Journal]
1. Totally agree. There is such a segmented market that there is no way the big guys will risk their products or services to be placed with something completely contrary to what they have branded themselves as.
Posted at 12:37AM on Sep 8th 2006 by Gary Bourgeault (bizofshowbiz.com)