Sub Pop Records: Buy the Merch, Get the Music for Free
An interview with Sub Pop General Manager Megan Jasper (via Seattle Weekly) clued us in on Sub Pop’s new approach to digital downloads:
Buy the merch, get the music for free.
“Although Sub Pop is primarily known for its many fine artists and their really very fine recordings (also grunge), we’re not at all opposed to expanding into the fine world of t-shirts, hats, beer cozies, and key chains,” Jaspers says. ”We used to give many of these tchotchke items away for free in an effort to entice people to pay for the music, but we’re considering flipping our strategy so that people pay for the toy and receive the music for free. Just a thought.”
Basically, Sub Pop is toying with the idea that if you buy, say, a Wolf Parade t-shirt, you would also get their album as a digital download for free.
As with any issue related to digital downloads, there’s going to be a lot of controversy with Sub Pop’s new approach. But as most any band can tell you, most of your money comes from merch anyway. It’s gratifying to have a band’s EP, housed in its pristine digipak, in hand, but let’s be honest; nowadays, most people take the CD, upload it to their computer and that’s that.
As a [sort of] music manager, the whole concept is really intriguing to me. No No Knots is prepping for the release of their new EP in the fall, and we’re also looking at getting more merch in anticipation of MPMF next month.
For a long time, we were just selling burned demos as a “pay-what-you-want” format, which works really well. Most people threw us $5, though plenty of people aren’t shy about admitting they’re just going to rip the demo from their friend who just shelled out some cash. Regardless of whether paid or not, we just wanted the music out there.
Once we started printing t-shirts though, we found that we made significantly more money than by just selling demos alone. I actually started giving away the demos if people bought t-shirts; it only cost less than $1 to burn and label the CDs anyway.
Now that we’re considering pressing EPs in the fall, this article brings up a good question. Is the digital download more valuable than a pressed CD? I think the physical album is definitely still relevant to music promoters, radio stations and blogs, who receive hundreds of emails a day from bands pushing their MP3s. And I still find value in selling CDs (and vinyl) at shows since many people like to listen to the band’s album on the way home from a show. But this idea of packaging a FREE digital download with merch might be the smartest thing the industry has done in a long, long time. It’s not exactly innovative, but it finally looks like the industry is starting to catch up with music fans.
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