Kickstarter
There’s a new website called Kickstarter and I’m not sure if you’ve seen it but it’s modeled on the notion of patronage, in the old style of things, and for that reason it’s kind of cool. Within the context of Kickstarter, what you do is you set up a project and then you give people the opportunity to pay into the project and then you give different rewards based on the level of commitment. There have been some people that have benefitted from this project, notably this singer/songwriter from Georgia named Allison Weiss.
Also, Venice Is Sinking, the great indie-rock band from Athens, has a project up on Kickstarter with the aim of helping them finance the production of their latest record on vinyl. As worthy a cause as any I can think of. So click here to donate.
So, in general, this seems like a pretty cool thing. For the people who have enough of a following to generate a large amount of donations, it’s perfect and a more scalable way of approaching potential donors than a letter writing campaign or a mass email to all your friends begging for money. And there are a few people that have managed to surpass their expectations and generate the investment they required to do whatever it was that they needed or wanted to do.
The larger question, in my mind, seems to be one that Bob Lefsetz addressed in his commentary on Imogen Heap and I suppose that question is, “What is the point of all of this?” On the one hand, I myself have thought about the notion of the music industry as a service business. Kickstarter has clearly expanded on that idea and accelerated this notion that there are levels of service and engagement dependent on your relationship with the artist and not everyone should get everything.
That feels healthy and appropriate and, echoing some of Fred’s comments about paid media, if it works, great and I hope to see a model that is sustainable and works for more than just a few artists.
The other hand is really more of a stylistic one and it’s one about navigating that steady tension between art, commerce and prostitution. I don’t have a lot of fully formed thoughts about this, really, and maybe the broader point is that it’s just not for me more than that it’s the wrong thing to do. But there is something offputting about the way that musicians and artists have tackled this notion of service level-based patronage. Offers to include people’s names in songs. Offers to write whole songs for people. Offers to basically do anything and everything that you can think of for the sake of some money to record some music. Well, money to live, as well.
And again, it’s about a tension not about a bright clear line. Because clearly all artists are whoring themselves out in some way anyway. The real world is replete with all manner of tension. From the tension to write a song that is more upbeat to the tension to have a beautiful backup singer to the tension to wear pants to the tension to ask for support in exchange for something else. That tension has always been there and always will be. As long as people want money in exchange for creating their art their will likely be some kind of implicit compromise inherent in the bargain that you make to make something.
So, again, it’s not something I have a lot of conviction about. It’s just something that’s on my radar. Something feels a little weird about the levels of begging that people resort to in order to get their music made. And then I guess the real challenge is, can you create levels of service that align with the buyer’s interests but also align with things you enjoy?
Like if you really like the challenge of working someone’s name or image into a song and it’s something you enjoy doing anyway, then maybe taking money from someone to write a song in a specific way isn’t so bad after all. It sounds kind of fun.
For me personally, there is a point at which I feel like I am metaphorically getting down on my knees and offering things that I really don’t want to do in exchange for some money or the illusion of a ‘community of fans’. And I guess that point is something we all have to decide for ourselves.
I suppose the trick is making sure that we artists hold onto our dignity as we search for the model that helps pay the rent and make music at the same time and I further suppose that I wish all of us the best of luck and for that reason I will withhold judgment on these issues but I do think dignity is a good thing and, wherever possible, we should step carefully around the bog of pathetic desperation on the way to drier firmer ground.
