Slicethepie.com
Slicethepie.com
01 February 2008
A WEBSITE IS OFFERING MUSICIANS THE CHANCE TO RAISE £15,000 IN EIGHT WEEKS. CHRIS HORKAN WONDERS IF THE DEAL’S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
When British violinist Tasmin Little offered her latest album, The Naked Violin, as a free download in January, The Times responded by calling the move 'revolutionary'.
The recording - of unaccompanied violin pieces by Bach, Eugène Ysaÿe and Paul Patterson - follows hot on the heels of Radiohead's In Rainbows, which reportedly shifted 1.8m download copies at an average price rumoured to be anywhere between £1 and £4.
The Naked Violin, meanwhile, is a less publicity-grabbing exercise but will surely do Little's public profile no harm. In fact, by making her album completely free, you could argue that she has taken Radiohead's 'honesty box' system to the next level.
'The site aims to "turn every fan into a record label" by asking listeners to back their musical judgement with hard cash'
Few musicians are able to give away something that they've worked hard to produce, of course, but Little's experiment goes to show that musicians across all genres are more willing and able than ever to experiment with distribution models.
Slicethepie.com, for example, is pioneering a new concept for the music industry. The UK-based website, which was developed in 2005 by former corporate financier David Courtier-Dutton, offers musicians the opportunity to raise £15,000 in just eight weeks - and has already shown the money to nine of its members.
The site combines the musical functionality of MySpace - uploading tracks, building a profile - with a stock market-style financial model. It aims to 'turn every fan into a record label' by asking listeners to back their musical judgement with hard cash.
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