A New Experience for Artists and Fans
The relationship between an artist and their fans is unlike anything else in human experience. Music allows an individual to travel in time and directly experience the same notes as people have enjoyed for hundreds of years. Songwriters are the philosopher-historians of our modern age, recording the human condition in music and verse. Performance brings music to life and it becomes a shared experience which the audience takes with them for the rest of their lives.
Artists can’t create if they have to focus on basic survival, and if artists can’t create then their fans can’t dream, and something beautiful is lost from the world which touches us all. However when one starts to talk about money and music eyes glaze over and things get complex quickly, but in the end it’s still all about the fans: the people who love what one creates.
A Little History and a Little Money
Studio time is expensive. Engineers and producers are expensive. Instruments and cables and stacks are expensive. Touring is expensive. Even just-in-time merchandise can easily get out of control, as anyone who bought too many size extra-small t-shirts with their logo on them might attest. The last pre-streaming, pre-CD explosion of music technology was the cassette single in 1987, and at a consumer cost point of $1.98. Each single contained 2–3 songs. The audio quality was terrible and they could be easily destroyed through normal use… but you could take it with you, anywhere. Sony’s Walkman unlocked mobile audio in ways most people only associate with MP3 players today.
Take contracts and royalties out of the equation, even streaming, and look at the 32 year-old price. The price of a McDonald’s Big Mac sandwich in 1987 was $1.60. The price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $0.90.
The price of a Big Mac in 2019: $5.58
The price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline in 2019: $2.79
The price of an artist-released digital download in 2019: $0.99
Even while the root problems with artist monetization have been obvious, it gets worse when one looks at the costs of production.
Nothing Adds Up.
The best breakdown I’ve ever seen as to how much it costs to produce a single was from 2013 and it’s held up rather well. It costs $11,500 for your average artist to create a professional single. If you have 10,000 followers on social media and 50% of them buy your latest track for $0.99, you will lose money doing what you love.
That’s obscene, and we have a better way.
What is Fanmix?
Quite simply, Fanmix is a unique marketplace which connects fans with their favorite artists and allows them to directly fund the creation of new artistic works. Fanmix allows fans to engage directly with their favorite artists and unlike other social media, it enables a dialogue which rises above the noise (without screaming!) because our platform is only about the music. Our team has over 75 years of real-life experience in developing markets and monetizing artistic content and Fanmix has several features which make it truly unique.
When fans buy music before it’s made, they become a direct part of the creative process. The next time you hear a song that you helped to create you will have a bond with that music that transcends the mundane. That music wouldn’t exist without you and you become a part of the music. Your favorite artist can provide special behind-the-scenes images and videos exclusive to those who funded its creation. It is quite simply the ultimate fan experience.
When artists have the funds to create, the world becomes a more beautiful place. Our goal for our platform is nothing short of a 21st century renaissance of musical creativity. Unshackled by the recording industry as it has existed for over 100 years, artists who are funded directly from their fans have front-loaded success doing what they love.
Fanmix pays fans to promote artists. Cryptocurrency isn’t really suitable for artist monetization due to the hurdles in its use, but as a reward system it is absolutely perfect. Fanmix rewards every single dollar paid to an artist through a referral system unlike anything which currently exists in music. The artist sacrifices nothing and fans can gain passive income promoting the music they love! It’s not called “magic internet money” for nothing and we have leveraged that monetization to its greatest extent. We’ll talk about this more in further blog posts.
The Journey Begins
In the next 100 days we will begin on-boarding artists from across the spectrum of musical tastes. We will begin to arm them with the tools they need to raise the money to make the music you love, and in return you will get a chance to become a part of the music industry itself.
We are incredibly excited to begin this journey with you and we look forward to all of the magic we can create together!
