Arcade Fire In Times Magazine Today

Good story about Arcade Fire in today's NY Times Magazine.

My favorite quote:

the Arcade Fire has shrewdly kept control of its affairs — paying for both albums itself, buying its own studio to record the second album and retaining the rights to all the master recordings; the band distributes its music by setting up licensing deals (with Merge in North America, with Universal in Europe). “The idea of someone else owning what we do is insane when we did all the work,” Win says.

It seems that this model, where the artist is able to retain greater control of their music by self funding the recording costs, is a growing trend.

Comments

[Timothy Post]

Fred:

Why aren't you using your VC skills to nurture and fund new musical talents like Arcade Fire? It seems like a natural fit.

[John Dodds]

Coincidentally, the cover story of the magazine on The Sunday Times over here is the Police - a band that over 30 years ago famously took a very small advance in exchange for huge royalty rates and retained a significant amount of their own publishing rights.

[EthanB]

Ya,

Like I said a few months ago, recording technology is going to zero, too. With a great room and $150k [or less?] worth of preamps and mics, you can compete with any multimillion dollar studio in the universe.

Also, you may have heard the "Neon Bible" is the name of a novel by John Kennedy Toole, the teenage prodigy who won the Pulitzer posthumously for his comic masterpiece "A Confederacy of Dunces" in 1981 [he committed suicide in 1969 I believe.

I haven't read "Neon Bible" but "A Confederacy..." is without question THE FUNNIEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN!!! You gotta read a chapter or two, it will make you appreciate the Arcade Fire's cultural tastes even more.

[Ted]

I love this! I think Clap Your Hands and Say Ya has even gone so far as to distribute their CD as I found no distribution credits on their newest CD. Fred, so far this has been a killer year for music and with the new upcoming releases I am excited. Now lets hope there is lots of touring to accompany these great albums.

[Mike Orren]

Thought you'd enjoy this one, Fred:

http://rbally.net/2007/03/arcade-fire-live-in-berlin.html

[peter kazanjy]

This is music being treated more like software. They create the IP (software/music), and partner with different channels to bring it to market.

And they monetize that IP using different licenses based on context/venue, etc.

They own the IP, and then allow someone to distribute, say, the CD piece.

They own the IP, but allow someone else to distribute the MP3 piece.

They own the IP, but allow someone to help them distribute the live shows.

And they themselves can monetize through their own channels, too, their website, their shows, what have you.

I work for a company (VMware) that sells extraordinarily complex, and valuable, IP, and Arcade Fire's go to market is starting to look more and more like ours...I hope they have as much success, because their product is pretty damn compelling.

Same goes for Radiohead, who appear to be doing the same thing with In Rainbows...