The Artist and Her Fans

Another sidetrack from the "selling stuff" series, but I saw a quote last week from Amanda Palmer, which I wanted to address.

Let me start off by saying Amanda Palmer is important.

Not because she is reinventing the music business. (She isn't. What she does works for her, but won't work for many others.)

Not because she has made some money using Twitter. (There are more lucrative ways to make money.)

But because she makes insightful comments about her life as an artist in an age where technology allows her to have some semblance of intimacy between herself and thousands of fans. She's not actually having a real dialogue with thousands of fans, but she's giving enough of herself to a few, and allowing everyone to watch, that it approximates intimacy.

She's also less guarded than many. She lets fans come to her gatherings. She gets rides from them when she's in their towns. She crashes at their houses. Most people would have trouble doing that, and celebrities have run into enough crazy fans that many won't go out into the world without a protective entourage, but Palmer appears to be comfortable with it.

... there's a real implicit sense of trust and honor. I trust my fans so much it's almost absurd. I just know that they're good people. I meet them. I hang out with them. I know them. And when a creepy one shows up, it doesn't take long before the crowd calls them out and rejects them from the pit. It's self-policing. "Interview: Amanda 'Fucking' Palmer, Part 2," hypebot, 7/21/09

She has thought about her relationship with her fans quite a bit.

Why are we so connected at all times through text and twitter, with our artists, with our friends, with THE WHOLE WORLD? To what end? "Interview: Amanda 'Fucking' Palmer, Part 1," hypebot, 7/20/09

And her conclusion:

i started making the music in the first place not because i wanted music, but because i wanted human connection.
music was the bridge there.

(it took me a long time to admit this to myself, because i felt guilty and like a naughty/bad/inauthentic artist when i truly discovered this, in my mid-twenties, classic crisis time).

BUT this is, hands fucking down, also why people listen, why they search, why they want art.

connection = primary.
music/art = secondary.

"AFP Responds to Bob Lefsetz re: Imogen Heap/music as a means of connection," The Shadowbox, 8/15/09

This triggered a response from fans about whether they just need the art to connect to the artist, or whether they need a direct connection to the artist as well. (You can read some of their comments at the above link.)

Bob Lefsetz also wrote about connecting.

The new Joni Mitchell is not a musician, but a blogger, detailing his or her own truth in the hope that someone, somewhere, will read the words and the writer will not feel so alone. "The Lost,"Lefsetz Letter, 8/2/09

He's talking about the writer seeking fans to connect. But his thoughts also apply in reverse: the fan seeking the artist to connect.

It's a topic we can explore at length when discussing the future of the music business and, even further, how the entire world of art is changing as new communication tools develop. Look for more blog posts from me on the subject.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

Fan Interaction the Imogen Heap Way

Another slight detour from the "selling stuff" series. But I wanted to highlight Imogen Heap, who I have mentioned before. Lately she has been getting a slew of publicity (undoubtedly tied to the fact that she has a new album coming out on August 25) for her online activities encouraging and sustaining fan involvement. Here's a very good overview.

Although she maintains creative control of her album, she sells through Sony in the UK and RCA in the US.

"I go through huge swathes of doubt about myself and the record," Heap says. "I don't have a boyfriend to say, 'People love what you do, carry on‚' so the Twitter gang have sort of become my surrogate boyfriend."

They also mean that her labels have none of the traditional anxiety about reconnecting her with her fan base, despite the long gap between records.

"It's been a while," says Aaron Borns, New York-based senior VP of marketing for RCA Music Group. "But she's been so diligent about communicating with her fans, it doesn't feel like she's been away." "Imogen Heap: On the Fast Track," Billboard, 6/20/09

But although Heap's story is being billed as another example of the new music business, as music commentator Bob Lefsetz points out, "... suddenly, you’re no longer a musician, but a personality. ... Just about everything Imogen has done here has nothing to do with music."

The "new music business model" stories have a lot to do with marketing, branding, and relationships. The stories we are getting now are pitched to tech blogs, creating a hook that may encourage those who haven't heard the artists to check them out. It's an interesting variation on what has long been a part of music marketing, the music PR machine.

"It will be interesting to see if people do go and buy the record in this age when people don’t buy records,” she says. “I think if anyone does have a chance, it is probably me. Because people feel attached to it, we’re related. It would be quite rude to download it for free after they’ve watched me putting all this work in.” "Imogen Heap: all hail the online queen," Telegraph, 7/31/09

Here are a couple of other stories which came out at the same time. Again, I assume the fact that we are getting a lot of Heap stories is related to the upcoming album release.

Imogen Heap Changing the Way Music Is Made, Musings for a Darkened Room, 7/21/09

Musicians watch and learn from @imogenheap, TechJuicer, 7/21/09

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE, 8/14/09

I noticed that not online does Heap have her own Twitter account, @imogenheap, but there is also a separate one for PR, @heapwire, which reinforces the main point of this blog entry.

Gotta Serve Somebody

Bob Lefsetz, who publishes a widely read newsletter about music and music business, recently wrote that true artists "don’t give a shit what anybody thinks." "We Can Be Heroes, Just For One Day,"Lefsetz Letter, 4/21/09

But that's not the new music business model. If anything, that is now less true than ever before.

In the past, the rebels could fight the corporations, the record labels, the system. In many cases they were able to play the game from both sides. They would get the contract (which they could justify as a necessary evil to get their music out to the world) and then, if they chose, complain about it. Protest songs were written and sung by artists on major labels. The system insulated them, in a way, from the dirty work of making money. Rather than being part of the money-making machine, they could legitimately claim they were its victims.

But now there isn't a system to complain about. You are free to do whatever you want in pursuit of your music. If you hope to make any money at all, you have to talk to your fans.

Twitter, Facebook, and the other forms of social media are about staying in touch with your fans, communicating with them, making them part of your family. You give them a great concert experience. You build communities for them. If anything, it has never been more about what people think. If they don't like you, they move on to someone else.

As Lefsetz also wrote in that newsletter, the alternative to not caring what people think is this: "You need to appeal to everybody. You need to take everybody into consideration."

That, rather than the "don't give a shit" attitude, is what music is about. If you aren't relating to your audiences, you are playing for yourself. And if you are playing for yourself, then you might as well play in your basement.

Suzanne Lainson