Middle-aged music fans remember picking up the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album in 1967, pouring over its cryptic cover, pulling out the giveaway cutouts inside and being blown away by one of the most famous artistic creations in popular music history.

But don't tell that to Matt Goyer.

Let's diverge from the album vs. single debate and talk about the fact that I don't buy CDs and I know I'm not alone. I'm also not flocking to the new 'legit' music services (because what's legit about paying your favorite artist $0.0014 a song?). So how do you get me to spend money on music? Offer me any of the following and my credit card will be out:

• Subscribe-to-an-Artist: I would gladly pay a significant amount of money to belong to a club for each of my favorite artists if once a month or several times a quarter they released to me, digitally of course, a *new* single (live or studio). Of course the song will show up on Morpheous within hours but the current pirate music networks only work if you know what you're looking for so push me the new music via email or some standardized client (artists such as Prince are doing this..).
• Live show subscriptions: I would pay a significant amount of money to be able to download moments after I've seen em. Hell, I'd even pay for shows I haven't seen. Yes I know there's a varity of bootleg networks and the old B&P thing but the consumer is lazy and there is no quality guarantee.
• Exclusive access to tickets: Edge 102 has a $200+/year pass for exclusive access. Why don't bands establish such a pass themselves. For a flat one time fee of $x, you'll be offered a 'good' seat before tickets go on sale to the public. (As much as I enjoy standing in the rain for 5 hours...)
• Aggregate patronage: Yes, if someone were to write this it should be John and I but we're lazy. Anyhow, I'd like to pay $20/month and have it automagically sent to the artists I listen to 14 hours a day while sitting in front of my computers.
• Memorabilia: There's a ton of stuff I'd probably buy from some of my favorite artists but they don't sell it! I.e. Tour posters, ball caps,...
• MPfucking3s: If I could download an entire Hip album in MP3 format for $x I would. Again, it's too much work to pirate it. And again, no I don't want some format riddled with DRM. (Imagine if all newspapers & magazines were printed on 'photocopy proof' paper (I'm thinking of the paper that the Simcity codes used to be printed on to discourage photocopying))

With so much I'm willing to pay for it's a wonder I spend $0/year on music (fine print: that excludes concerts. I go to a fair amount of em). Now my electronics spending habits is another story.

What do you think? What would you pay for? And do you want the album to die? I know Maeve doesn't (Happy Birthday Maeve!).
9:39:48 PM   []