![]() Sly Jones, a 30-year-old music blogger and Nike customer service rep from Arizona, took up the dare. On Sept. 17, with El-P’s amused blessing, Jones’ attempt to actualize Meow the Jewels launched on Kickstarter, the South Park-satirized "all or nothing" crowdfunding platform whose guidelines require projects to reach a fixed monetary goal by an immovable deadline, otherwise no money is transferred. No such problem with the cat-rap goof. When the 41-day drive ended on Oct. 28, Meow the Jewels had trounced its $40,000 goal, raising a total of $65,783, and El-P was already auditioning cats. Run the Jewels' El-P Calls 'Meow' Kickstarter 'An Opportunity to Do Something Good in a Fun Way'
The arts have especially benefited from crowdfunding’s swell. Spike Lee, Zach Braff and Don Cheadle have all successfully subsidized film projects. In the music space, crowdfunding functions in place of label support, booking agents, even academic scholarships. Kickstarter alone has bankrolled more than 17,000 music projects, including two 2014 Grammy winners (the self-titled debuts from vocal octet Roomful of Teeth and Latin big band Pacific Mambo Orchestra both won statues) and an album from Kenny Loggins, who marshaled $121,797, that is due in 2015. By raising nearly $70,000 through the 2-year-old Tilt, a freelance creative director orchestrated a Foo Fighters concert this past September in Richmond, Va., where the rock band hadn’t played in 15 years. And, of course, there are failures. Right now on GoFundMe, a college-age bassist named Max is seeking to collect $20,000 for his Berklee College of Music tuition, an effort that has drearily plateaued at $515. Corner Office: Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler on Success, 'Broken Promises' and Being Spoofed by 'South Park' Crowdfunding successes tend to have a few primary persuasive characteristics. Beyond sympathy or charity, there’s the tug of nostalgia or personal loyalty: You simply have to pay for this. (See the $264,000 bankrolled for Toad the Wet Sprocket’s first LP in 16 years.) There’s the hyper-specific interest: No one else but you will pay for this. (Pacific Mambo Orchestra’s Grammy winner only sold 341 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan). There’s the prospect of silliness: Wouldn’t it be funny if you paid for this? (Meow the Jewels; the Ohio man who famously raised $55,000 to make potato salad this summer). But the one pitch that’s still an awkward transaction is outright solicitation: Help me pay for this. (The threat of rejection is so real that a company called Launch and Release actually charges musicians $259 for "crowdfunding training.") Anamanaguchi, $277,399 In 2013, this trio asked for $50,000 for its 22-track 8-bit opus, 'Endless Fantasy.' The band got five times that amount.Lloyd Bishop/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank
"I was devastated," says Sobule. "I wasn’t asking for money for free. It was an exchange." Amanda Palmer knows this predicament better than anyone. A musician, artist and Internet firebrand who also has become a de facto poster woman for the crowdfunding movement, the 38-year-old first gained a cult following as half of the cabaret-punk duo Dresden Dolls, whose second album Yes, Virginia peaked at No. 42 on the Billboard 200 in 2006. Signed to Roadrunner Records, the singer was forthcoming about her ongoing frustrations with her label, even once publicly begging it to drop her, so when the Warner Music Group subsidiary did in 2010, she immediately updated her blog with a giddy note, a download of an unreleased song and a gentle invitation for PayPal support. To this day, a donation link appears on her personal site, footnoted with an explanation of the shift in responsibility: "YOU are my label now, comrades." U.S.-Based Iraqi Metal Band Acrassicauda Raises Funds on Kickstarter to Record Debut Album Palmer has always abided by the pass-the-hat ethos. In the late-’90s, the Massachusetts native earned money as a street performer called the Eight-Foot Bride, accepting dollar bills in a spraypainted vase. A little more than a decade later, Palmer and her now-husband, best-selling author Neil Gaiman, together raised $133,341 in 2011 to sponsor a five-date co-headlining U.S. tour. The following year, Palmer launched a Kickstarter campaign asking for $100,000 to fund her solo album Theatre Is Evil, along with an accompanying book and supporting tour. Instead, she smashed that goal with an astounding $1.2 million, logging the (still) biggest music project in crowdfunding history. But the firestorm of criticism ignited three months later, when the singer put out a call asking musicians to play on the Theatre Is Evil Tour for free. Fellow musicians lambasted her, including Steve Albini, Owen Pallett and a Seattle musicians’ union. Online,The New Yorker referred to her cattle call as "hypocrisy." Bob Mould, $103,172 Only the Husker Du songwriter would be able to pull off crowdfunding a documentary about his own tribute show. In 2012, he did.Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images "One of the saddest misunderstandings about my Kickstarter," Palmer tells Billboard, "was that people believed I had just pocketed $1.2 million when nothing could have been further from the truth." (At the time, in a 2,214-word blog post, Palmer detailed a long list of "back-of-the-napkin costs," including $250,000 for various outstanding debts, $80,000 to $100,000 for four to five music videos and $80,000 for the books, plus management and an accountant.)
YouTube Announces Crowdfunding, Donations, Free Music Jack Conte, percussionist half of the twee duo Pomplamoose, also struggled with transparency and the guilt of asking fans to pay. His oddball band was a viral video pioneer. A homespun cover of Beyoncé’s "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" was viewed more than 4 million times, and in 2010, the duo landed a Toyota commercial with a cover of The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman." But in 2013, Conte poured his life savings — $15,000 -- into shooting a music video co-starring robots and only yielded $100 in YouTube ad revenue. The experience inspired him to start Patreon, a crowdfunding service that works by backing creators, not projects. (In September, YouTube also added a fan-funding component, allowing users to donate directly to video creators.) Launched in May 2013, Patreon now processes $250 million in pledges every month for its 49,086 creators. "I personally don’t take a salary," says Conte, explaining that his band releases two videos per month on Patreon, raising an average of $6,200 per video. Animal Collective, $25,985 In 2009, Josh "Deakin" Dibb crowdfunded a Mali trip, promising artwork inspired by the visit. He went, but never delivered.Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images Meanwhile, PledgeMusic, a site that bills itself as a "direct to fan" platform, has deliberately distanced itself from the perceived indignities associated with crowdfunding, hosting fundraising campaigns with financial targets without disclosing the figures. "The musicians at the caliber that we wanted to work with -- the larger musicians -- didn’t want to crowdfund," says PledgeMusic president and founder Benji Rogers. "They didn’t want to ask for money; they didn’t want to show publicly what they were worth. Our greatest success came when we erased the financial target."
"Crowdfunding is an incredible tool for technologies and for investment in business -- I just believe it’s the wrong tool for music," says Rogers, a musician who used to be a roots-rock artist named Marwood. He might be on to something. Maybe there’s a better way to boil down the essentials and support independent projects without the shame or indecency of raw currency. "Music has an emotional bond with the artist and fans. If you place finance in the middle of that, it muddies the water. I don’t want to know how much an artist I love is worth. I just want to be a part of the magic." Posted from : http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6311940/why-reddit-to-richard-branson-are-betting-big-on-crowdfunding |