Buy An Album Months Before You Can Actually Listen to It? Really?!

By Andrew Meyer on August 24, 2007

We are going to start seeing some great new music startups popping up as music makes a stronger move to the online space over the next couple of years. Music promotion and distribution is a different animal online and we will see plenty of new models taking on the old models of promotion and distribution

One new music startup is SellABand. They want to help introduce young bands with only a handful of songs recorded (some only have one song recorded) to the world and help them get an album recorded. New artists on the site include Dead Sil3nce, Side Rolle, and SanKalpa.

SellABand lets music fans browse their artists and listen to a couple (or one) of their recorded songs. If you like what you hear, SellABand wants you to become a “Believer” and pre-purchase an album for $10 that the artist has not yet made. The idea being that if five thousand other Believers does the same thing than SellABand will use the pre-paid album money ($50,000) to produce, record and create an album. When an album is completed Believers will get the album for free and the satisfaction of jumpstarting a young artists career.

I know this model is fun and looking out for the young bloods, but it’s just an odd concept. The whole thing about buying an album because you believe in the band seems more of a novelty than about potentially good music. Why would you want wait six months or more for an album outside of pure novelty?

It reminds me of what major labels do with new pop albums when they play pre-released singles on Clear Channel radio stations and play teaser music videos on MTV with the hopes that you will go out and buy the artists album when they come out on Tuesday without listening to them.

SellABand must really be into the concept of the album because it’s hard not to dismiss their “Believer” model as novelty. But, if the Believer community starts choosing some winners with their $10 investments than I will gladly recant my initial skepticism.

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