It's time to set music free

We all love music

Photo Credit: RossinaBossioB

30 Seconds Isn't nearly enough time to gauge whether or not you like a song enough to buy it.

I was on the iTunes store, something I admittedly rarely ever do. I was there to sample some of Little Birdy's new album Confetti. I found the most popular songs and had a listen. Not bad, some interesting melodies. But there just wasn't enough of a preview for me to get into any of them.

Without being able to listen to the full song before I buy it, I'm taking a risk on whether or not I will like it. As with most people the risk is generally thought to be high. If I didn't like it there's little chance I would buy more. We need to remove this risk, this gamble of quality, so to speak.

I then went deeper into the album, as more often than not the real gems are stowed away at the end of the album. You know the ones. The ones that never make critical acclaim but are clearly some of the best on the album.

These songs are usually more progressive or much deeper than there popular pop counterparts. And you usually don't discover their true beauty until you have heard them a few times in there entirerity. 30 seconds could never do these songs justice. Ever.

You've Got 30 Seconds

You can't listen to the whole song on iTunes. You can't even have half, you just get 30 seconds and that’s it. This is one of the reasons I source so much of my new music from gigs or sites like last.fm, The Hype Machine, thesixtyone.com and so on.

I guess the reason I am even bringing this issue to attention is the very simple fact that having these small 30 second snippets of music is not the way forward. Many sites are liable to this, and need to move forward.

Thankfully on Little Birdy's website they have their top three most popular songs from their latest album available for anyone to listen. As many times as you want. Suffice to say Brother is stuck in my head as I type this. And you can sure as hell bet I'm going to buy the album tomorrow. I say tomorrow, because my audiophile nature has restricted me to only purchasing CD's or Vinyl, but that’s another story.

With file sharing as easy as it is nowadays, allowing people to listen to the entire album free before they consider a purchase is a win win 

Some people, especially the big players shy away at this style (thankfully more and more indies are realising the potential here). Many used to think that people would just constantly listen on these websites and never purchase the music. This just isn't the case. As with all music, if its good enough, and people like it, they will pay for it (though how much they pay is often up for debate). Sites like last.fm, Pandora, and Spotify and other online streaming services are testament to this. 

Another problem with the 30 second limit is people judge only on the 30 seconds. Sounds logical, but what I mean is that if they are grabbed in that 30 seconds. On the first listen then, that song is gone. They wont even give it another moments thought. I have a friend exactly like this, and it pains me to think of all the good music he is missing out on. I know he's not alone though. 

Many people shy away from songs if they don't initially grab them. This is the reason successful radio pop songs are structured the way they are, Due to the fact you may only catch a small part of it changing stations and it has to grab you. Honestly though, I'm not much of a disposable pop fan so I'll leave that there.

Behavioural Economics

The solution to this is really quite simple and works on a degree of behavioral economics (if you want to know more I highly recommend Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely). If we want people to buy music nowadays we really need to set it free. Let me explain.

A cab driver was having massive problems with damage to his car. Every night the drunken passengers he would take were rowdy and would vandelise the car. The cab driver couldn't work out why.

 

He then decided to take a close look at his car. It was a fairly standard cab, i.e. average car, a cage to protect the driver (something he needed), and a vandelised cab even though he would clean it every night. Not very inviting.

 

He then had a stroke of genius and went out on a limb. He purchased a very expensive luxury car. Did away with the cage, and kept it clean and extremely presentable. For the first week taking the exact same type of passengers home (drunken people ending there nights in the city), he noticed a remarkable change.

 

We people jumped in the car, they were nowhere near as rowdy as in the old car. Vandalism was a thing of the past. His damage bills became non-existent. Looking back, his initial loss on the new luxury car ended up with more money in his pockets. Not to mention he began to enjoy his job again.

The moral of this story is simple. By treating customers as friends, or better put equals, they will be more inclined to act that way. Likewise, by treating them like criminals you effectively vindicate what they may desire to do. What this means for the music industry is that we need to start treating fans as friends. Locking music away behind closed door and only giving a small portion out isn't very friendly.

An album isn't something typically purchased on a whim. Most people will have heard a few songs on it before hand. This is because there is a risk that they might buy an album, and not like any of the tracks. In our minds this equates to a bad purchase. I just spent all this money on something I will probably never use. Is a common thought.

Set It Free

To prove my point of setting music free and allowing people to try before they buy, you need not look any further than Radiohead or NIN. Both have a habit of releasing music free, and admittedly that was around the same time I began to give them an honest listen.

Music fans still see this risk. After all if they don't like it, they've just wasted their money. But more to the point, there is people who may very well love it, but are too afraid to spend their hard earned cash. We need to remove this risk to encourage people to try new music, and let them freely discover more music they like.

In reality there is no initial risk, only a perceived one. Not now anyway. With file sharing as easy as it is nowadays, allowing people to listen to the entire album free before they consider a purchase is a win win. Because in reality, most people already and when they decided its good enough to buy, the buy link is nowhere to be seen.

Am I Right?

Would you agree that we need to set music free?

Can you gauge whether or not you are going to buy a song from just a 30 second sample?

Let me know in the comments.