I wrote about how creativity should be for free in this post a while ago. I know it sounds preposterous (and selfish) to ask artists to distribute their work for free but just hear me out.Over the last few weeks I've been exposed to some very interesting, heart-touching and goosebumpy music experiences over the internet. They are all connected by two things: copyright and creative commons and they brought me back to that short little post I made a while ago. Let me explain to you what these were.Jason MrazMr. A-Z, as he is sometimes referred to, is an artist I've been following a long time before he got famous on the mainstream pop scene. I love his music for his brilliant lyrics and of course his guitar. Anyway, a friend of mine passed these virals that Jason Mraz produced on the streets of Paris as a part of promoting his upcoming European tourIts beautiful to see the two musicians (with two completely different histories) to just sit there and play their respective instruments. So what Jason Mraz did was - a live impromptu show on the street, recorded it, enjoyed it thoroughly and put it online. Equals promotion.Some more diggin up led me to La Blogotheque production. Their concept seems pretty interesting to me. Of course not all the videos on their site are giveaways but the fact that some are open to having one of their impromptu jamming sessions be downloaded for free is pretty cool. I mean if you are only jamming on the street and not really "performing" at abig stage or a costly studio, you might as well give it away for free right. The audience will promote you, for you. Check out the other artists they have on their site who've done more such "take-away shows." Sean Fournier and Coldplay
What do these two artists have in common? Well, you might know and even be a huge fan of Coldplay and may not have ever heard of Sean Fournier. Well what they both have in common is awesome music and a free album give away. I found Fournier on thesixtyone.com His track - 'Put the world on stop' was one of the tracks I ended up loving on the site. You can imagine the smile on my face when I found out that he was giving away that album for free. His site here: http://www.sean-fournier.com/ohmyI sent that link to at least 15 of my friends and proudly showed it off on twitter too. Equals Promotion.
After you hear his music and like it which i'm sure you will head over to his twitter handle @seanfournier to tell him about it.
Two days later, I found Coldplay was giving away one of their new live albums for free too - LeftRightLeftRight
"LRLRL has to be free because there's so many backing singers." - Coldplay
Fair enough, don't you think? Well, I guess there's more to that than why they were giving it away for free. Yes, equals promotion.
Imogen heapThere was once a time when hers was the only music i had on my mp3 player, my laptop and my ringtones too. Yes, I adore her. So, when I found her on twitter(@imogenheap), I had to follow her immediately. Luckily, the very same day she was trying out a trial on webcasting her performance from her living room.
To listen to one of your favorite artists do an impromtu performance on their piano broadcast live, while you are at your desk, is indescribable.
While Imogen Heap may not have intended this to be a form of promotion, just pure silly pleasure of connecting with her fans, she has convinced me that I should buy myself and a friend tickets to see her show live whenever I have the opportunity to :) Equals promotion
So, as I see it, in case you're not comfortable putting your work under creative commons, giving an album or a free live session of your band jamming once in a while, shouldn't hurt.Thoughts?Update: Sean Fournier talks about this post. Thanks for agreeing with me Sean! :)
Sean Fournier was the first artist featured on FrostWire & FrostClick.com back in 2008 - he's got over 35,000 downloads and some great feedback. Free music downloads in general are getting better and more popular each day & Creative Commons Licensing allows artists to make money on commercial uses of their creations... I love where the music industry is going!
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Sean Fournier was the first artist featured on FrostWire & FrostClick.com back in 2008 - he's got over 35,000 downloads and some great feedback. Free music downloads in general are getting better and more popular each day & Creative Commons Licensing allows artists to make money on commercial uses of their creations... I love where the music industry is going!
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