Download “Oh, Death!”, the first single off of their album “God Bless Your Weary Soul, Amanda Richardson” below and stream the full album here.

DOWNLOAD Pearl and the Beard – Oh, Death! (MP3)

“Why I can’t subscribe to all my favorite label’s releases for the year?”

That’s an excellent question! Why not? I decided to explore this question further, rather than waiting around for others to develop their model. Noah and I got together for coffee and brainstormed about what a model like this ideally would look for a customer. Lets start by describing the two main advantages to the label subscription model that are currently not being sufficiently exploited by record labels.

1. Convenience – It shouldn’t be the customer’s job to find out when their favorite label is releasing another album. “But,” I hear you ask, “We have a nice mailing list to keep everyone up to date of new releases!” That’s still not convenient enough! E-mails go unread and purchasing music is still many clicks away. GQ doesn’t send me an e-mail every month to let me know a new issue came out that I can buy. They give me the option to pay up front and commit to the next 12 or 24 issues right now, and they will mail them to me! How’s that for convenient and easy?
2. Financial Benefits - Customers receive a discount for their upfront financial investment and commitment. Labels receive money up front that they can invest in marketing and producing upcoming releases. Win-win!

Keeping this in mind, our brainstorm explored different angles and I distilled our thoughts into the simplest possible model, as described below. Note that this is a digital-only model.

• The Term Of A Subscription (Time Period vs. Number of Releases) – Instead of offering a time-based subscription, for say one year, it seems to make more sense to base it on the number of releases. This would help labels avoid having to release records simply to fulfill their subscription requirements for the year, and focus instead on releasing quality music only.

  Subscription 1: 6 Albums
  Subscription 2: 12 Albums

  Question: Would you feel comfortable with a model based on a number of releases, not knowing exactly what the timing of the schedule would be?

• The Price Of A Subscription – Consumers opting for a subscription are giving labels money up-front and should receive a discount for their vote of confidence. Single purchases of an album go for $10. A 6 album subscription would be discounted by almost 18% from $60 to $50, and a 12 album one by 20% from $120 to $100.

  Subscription 1: 6 Albums ($50)
  Subscription 2: 12 Albums ($100)

  Question: Would a discount stimulate you to choose a subscription over single purchases for your favorite label?

• What About EPs and Singles? – Bands increasingly release singles and EPs, rather than full length albums (LPs). This complicates the subscription model a bit, as the pricing relates to LPs. To solve this each EP (5 songs) will count as half of an album, and each Single (2 songs) as 1/5th of an album. Consumers that pick the 6 Album Subscription will receive at least 60 songs, whether it would be 6 LPs, or an combination of LPs, EPs and Singles.

  Question: To further simplify the model, should we remove any mention of releases/lps/eps/singles, and merely offer 60 and 120 song subscriptions?

• Method Of Delivery- Subscribers will receive an e-mail with a download link that is valid for 7 days. The link will allow them to download a zip file containing the full album as individual 192kbs MP3s, artwork and a PDF booklet. As an extra courtesy this e-mail will be sent two full weeks before the release goes live on iTunes.

Note: Naturally this model only makes sense for a label that has a strong and consistent brand that is identifiable across releases. Secretly Canadian would be an excellent example, as would Matador, Arts & Crafts,  Roc-A-Fella or Motown in their heyday, releases from the Wu-Tang Clan and their members. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for say Epic Records or Universal Republic. They simply do not have a focused musical brand, and consequentially no one cares enough about those brands to take out a subscription.

That’s it! Simple, and easy. I would love to hear your thoughts on this model. Any improvements, thoughts, and questions would be appreciated. I am looking to learn from you, and try to launch a crowd-sourced version by CMJ in late October for Family Records.

08.24 @ DC9 w/ Ugly Purple Sweater (Washington, DC)
08.25 @ Murph’s Bar w/ Adam Rivera (Philadelphia, PA)