“If people choose to interact, they gain power, because their choice is up to them, not the marketer.”
The quote above is from Seth Godin’s new book, We Are All Weird. As his books are, it was concise and thought-provoking. The call to action in this book especially, to embrace your individuality, your “weird,” has some special applications to musicians and their fans.
The overarching point I took from the book is summed up nicely in the quote above. Seth makes the point that the twentieth century was the century of efficiency and mass-produced products. This was especially true of the music industry. We will probably never see a band as big as the Beatles again and fans’ general knowledge of what is out there will be a fraction of what it used to be, because they will find their own niche of music to be experts on and ignore the Top 40 radio that Clear Channel tries to push at them.
As the quote above implies, as fans and artists have begun to interact in a more direct manner using social media, YouTube, and crowd-sourcing sites. Online forums allow fans to engage other hardcore fans, which only further entrenches them into this new, “weird” crowd.
Record labels have lost their influence because artists and fans can now engage each other directly. Previously, labels and management selected the cities that artists toured. Pockets of fans in smaller markets didn’t have enough voice to get their favorite artists to their cities. GigFunder is changing that.
This is an extremely exciting time to be in the music industry. Music startups that empower fans’ and artists’ interactions are helping to push music in a new direction, and we are excited to help make music weird again.
<Reposted from http://blog.gigfunder.com/ >
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