Fan? Nope, bandmember.
Dutch band Jean Parlette are going through a change. And a change it is. They have created a website dedicated to a new project: ‘Le System’. ‘Le System’ let’s you, me and your regular John and Jane subscribe and donate money in return for a piece of the package. If you go for the silver membership you become a bandmember and you will be invited to download a song now and then, you’ll get a voice in album art and new songs and you can get yourself guestlisted or even get on stage and play! If you go for gold though, you will be treated like a king: a lifetime (band)membership, a dinner gig for two, a song written especially for you, you’re given the freedom to put setlists together and you will get lifetime subscription to a signed version of every future release from Jean Parlette.
In short, what they try to achieve in a very cool way is to interact with their audience and find alternative revenues. We’ve seen other (Dutch) bands trying new things and allowing fans to come closer and be a part of party, but JP are stepping it up and pulled out the full range of possibilities. Let’s hope they can prove the entire music industry wrong and manage to make money on their own and from new products solely focussing on the fans and music lovers in general. Their level of creativity and ambition won’t stand in their way to make it big, that’s for sure.
From their Twitterfeed:
We are now 62 bandmembers! That’s great, wonder if we could make a symphony or a choir or just make 5 soccerteams including coaches…
Become a bandmember!
http://www.lesystem.nl
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
So basically if you’re rich you’re welcome to enjoy the music at its best and if you’re poor you’re allowed to listen to music in a certain way decided for you?
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:15 pm
If that’s your perception! The rich-poor argument is a little poor tho (excuse the pun
), people who download will continue to download, or find other ways to get music for free.
Overall I believe what this could do at the very least is show other ways to approach the trade. If only we could get more artists to adapt this sort of thought process, to think for themselves and get a little taste of business. There are awesome labels out there, I’m sure of it. But many major ones just seem to rip artists off, keep them hanging in the promo department, rally them up against their own fans (!), stick to business principles from the 80s and so forth. Why cling onto those labels?? Ah, I digress. But you get my point, n’est-ce pas?