How Musicians Monetise Fame from Cameo to Crypto
Last week I wrote about ‘the decade of paid’ and how celebrities were increasingly able to monetise their fame using modern tools and apps.
Thinking about this during the week I wanted to delve a bit further into this, as I find the subject so fascinating.
One industry that this is very relevant for is music. Since the creation of the internet, through Napster, declining physical music sales, the rise of streaming, and finally the pandemic making live music all but impossible, musicians have had to find other ways to monetise what they do, and who they are.
One way is simply to monetise who you are, and give fans a way to directly pay you for products and services.
Cameo is a great example of this. There are many musicians willing to record a short video greeting in exchange for money. For example Alice Cooper, who charges £225 per message and gets reviews like
“The video you made for my brother’s 60th birthday made his day. He loves you and told me that he went to your last 3 concerts in the Twin Cities (MN). You made me a fan too. thank you!”
Depop is another good example. Musicians can sell clothing that either they have worn (celebs can’t be seen wearing the same stuff all the time), or clothes that reflect their style. Lily Allen has an account with 66,000 followers, and regularly sells clothes from her wardrobe.
Musicians have been very active users of Kickstarter ever since it started, using it to fund specific projects — TLC raised over $400,000 to pay for their final album — and of course Patreon to support them on an ongoing basis.
Patreon is in many respects a more interesting platform because it provides a regular income, rather than to pre-sell a planned piece of work or tour. Julia Nunes currently has over 500 fans supporting her, in exchange for early access to work, and at the higher tiers a sense of connection, including access to her ‘secret’ Instagram and monthly Zoom calls. What is likely to work best is a sense of personal connection, and a sense that you are helping the specific artist.
One membership model that didn’t work was launched by Domino records in 2012. Domino created a club for the label:
For ten dollars a month fans of the London-based label will receive two new albums and other digital goodies as both MP3s and WAVs, plus get discounts on physical releases. And new long players from Hot Chip, Dirty Projectors and Animal Collective are set to be part of the deal.
This doesn’t seem to exist any more, and I suspect the issue was that it wasn’t directly connected with a specific artist, so there was less sense of connection, less sense of special access.
Which brings us to the latest alternative funding model within music — Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs. These are certificates locked into a blockchain that can be created for a specific piece of digital content. ‘Non-fungible’ means that they are unique and not interchangeable. One bitcoin is exactly the same as another, but these tokens are created in specific batches of a certain number.
Last week Kings of Leon announced that there would be an NFT option in their new album release. As The Guardian reports:
The US rock group will sell two different types of NFT: one, which will be made available for a limited time, acts as a sort of deluxe version of the band’s new album When You See Yourself; the other, of which just six will be sold at auction, is effectively a lifetime ticket to the band’s shows.
Whether this is a good idea I have no idea, but as I’ve shown, the monetising fame in the music industry always has an element of intangible value; a short video message is valuable because Alice Cooper did it, or a dress is valuable because Lily Allen wore it once.
This veers into both the art and collector markets, both of which don’t necessarily obey the laws of logic, but the theory is this: Even though a piece of digital content can be seen and copied an infinite number of times, if you stick something unique to it then you can sell ownership of that.
When I read about last week’s acquisition of music streaming service Tidal by by payment platform Square, I wondered if there was a connection. Jack Dorsey, who owns Square, has recently been getting involved in Bitcoin, and clearly understands the potential of blockchain technology. In fact one of the craziest NFT stories is the attaching of an NFT to Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet, which is now selling for over $2m.
Square has developed into more than just a payment platform, including offering other tools for merchants like inventory management, and even tools to build great sites. If they now see music as an interesting niche to explore for monetisation, there are lots ways they can potentially help, including newer tools.
Tidal being owned by Square raises the possibility of more imaginative ways of monetising. Is there a huge untapped market for ‘exclusive’ ownership by NFT of new or classic music (or even parts of tracks), with Jay-Z, former owner of Tidal, on hand to sell it to his friends?
