Free Music sounds like a simple concept, but why exactly is “FREE MUSIC so important?”
For simplicity sake let’s call it, music delivered free to the user, paid for by someone else.
This concept is at the crux of music marketing.
For decades, Curated Recorded Music Content was the “killer app” for the earlier technological advance we know as radio. The technologies of the period were advanced vinyl recordings, plus the phonograph, a device that allowed this recorded music to be heard, and the jukebox allowing for payments.
Music “free to the user” fueled the spread of this hardware: radios, vinyl, and turntables. It was supported by advertisers using music to sell their wares.
“Free music” on the radio has been responsible for sales of hundreds of millions of varying vinyl configurations as well as the advertiser’s product. Radio “free music,” and the “free listen” (where you could hear music someone else paid for) were responsible for my love of music. Most of the music I purchased, I had heard before at a friend’s, and most of the music I liked and eventually paid for in a jukebox, but didn’t buy, I heard on a favorite radio station. I might have never appreciated Patsy Kline without being stuck in a diner during a snowstorm with a huge Patsy Kline fan who fed the jukebox and played her music all night.
All music needs to start “free” for exposure to build or reach an audience. The more you can give away your music, the more you can sell.
Michael Jackson and the Beatles are top music sellers and their songs are among the most played on radio.
Exposure and discovery of music are based on “FREE.”
“FREE MUSIC” IS ESSENTIAL TO THE MUSIC ECOSYSTEM.
It’s important to note radio only played these artists BEST songs, made and paid for by record companies. These artists sold millions of CDs, albums and singles, making the investment by the recording companies worth tons of $.
While today’s free music opportunities are confusing:
Radio, a dying media, has tried it’s best to salvage its role as an indispensable tool for mass marketing of popular songs. There is no discovery, only exposure for corporate music possibilities. Music radio is a corrupt shell of it’s former self, so it can’t be counted on for creating “music love” any more. Radio has become a full-on marketing tool for major labels.
This monopolistic hold on “Free Music” by business interests is dumbing down the users of this language and harming music. Streaming services and Internet radio are equally as guilty in neglecting this human language and art form. It seems cultivating a dumb audience is the goal of all the corporate business interests involved in the “music business.”
These subscription services are using ”Free Music” to entice users to their premium services. Today’s corporate greedy( both major labels and technology companies) are perverting the “Free Music Concept” to diminish any payments to the music creator for exposure for their latest product. If this was the only perversion, I wouldn’t waste time over it. It’s a common business practice for the costs of marketing to be paid back to the business from the creation’s income before any payment or royalties are due to the creator .
But what really concerns me is that the free music experience has been de-valuated for the public as well. The “Free Music” uses in the current music subscription services, are designed to be a lesser-value use (free access ad supported) to the subscription service, to supposedly entice you to use their premium service without ads and more features.
HERE’S WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE ROAD. One of those paid for features is the unlimited ability to fast forward through songs you don’t like. Radios in cars had this feature (to exit a playlist) and it was essential to have this “skip-ability.” While these digital services treat mediocre songs (known as album cuts) included on long playing recordings for fan consumption, the same as they treat the best songs of an artist. Plus the bogus bonus tracks used to add value to the some CD sale or one hundred remixes of a hit are treated with equal value to the BEST version of a song or an artist’s recording. This may be good for these rental services, but not gr8 for nurturing love for a language and an art form. Even the subjectively created playlist have a limited ability to fast forward.
Radio thrived by only featuring these BEST songs, and there was a healthy demand for ownership of this music, ergo a thriving music business.
With all this FILLER music in subscription services intentionally skewing the music pool, and the limited ability to fast-forward, the “Free Music Experience” has been DIMINISHED considerably.
Historically, deejays, music lovers, and other HUMAN music curators, created free music experiences, by selecting songs they SUBJECTIVELY valued as worthy. These humans passed on their music love, competing over the ability to find music you might love is sorely lacking in the corporate approaches I see so far.
So I created the FREE MUSIC LIST to improve the quality of, and draw attention to the value of FREE MUSIC. I can’t allow a language and an art form I love denied information because of corporate greed.
I NEED HELP SPREADING THE WORD, FINDING AND ADDING VALUE TO THE FREE MUSIC LIST!!
Until then I’m going it alone. I have compiled music since 1999 when I felt the lights go out in the subjective selection of music world.
SO:
- I’m offering the music I control for Free to listen to and use non commercially.
- We’ve found music for Free in the Public Domain.
- I designed web-sites, and with the help of many, found some GR8 music available for Free offered by the music creators who needed exposure.
Ergo the FREE MUSIC LIST @ SURF4U.COM.
I hope you enjoy the experience.