This week I have been listening to Girl Talk's new album. Like a growing number of artists, Girl Talk makes his albums available online for free, sometimes allowing downloaders to donate an amount of their choosing to the artist. This seems like a pretty unsustainable business strategy, but there are a few reasons why I think it works for artists like Girl Talk.
First, the availability of free, online music has led to the decline of CD sales. As this has happened, musicians have had to increasingly rely on live performances in order to make money. By allowing downloaders free access to one's music, an artist is simply recognizing that people would be downloading it for free anyway through Torrent and other online services. Second, many artists like Girl Talk can't legally sell their music commercially. Because their music consists of mashes and mixes of other artists copyrighted music, sometimes combining acts as disparate as Three-6 Mafia and the Smashing Pumpkins, selling their music would leave them on the less desirable end of countless lawsuits. Finally, releasing high-quality music for free goes so far in developing listener loyalty that many times fans will go out of their way to pay for concert tickets or give donations out of a sense of gratitude. This could be seen clearly with Lil' Wayne's release of Tha Carter III. After several years of releasing countless high-quality mix-tapes free online, Lil' Wayne finally released Tha Carter III, a studio album. Although anyone who had enjoyed his free releases could have found that album on the internet for free, fans went out in droves and bought the CD. It seems the reason for this was appreciation for the free work Lil' Wayne had done in the past.
Despite this seemingly strange method of release I think it works for artists like Girl Talk. His new album can be downloaded here: http://illegal-art.net/allday/
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