About fifty million people like myself have had this revelation about creative production - skip the middleman, essentially - and gotten all excited about the coming revolution in which artists throw down the shackals of the Media Lords and give everybody a much better deal. Jane Siberry is clearly walking the talk with her Sheeba Records. I worry, though, because I fear we are all somewhere about a third of the way into a crushing lesson in the ways of this bad old world.
Case in point: what am I to make of Siberry's "Self-Determined Transactions" policy? Does it belong on the "Phree Musique" blog? Make no mistake: you can get music for free here. Go to the store, join the 19% of freeloaders (statistics on download behaviors are just one of the fascinating distinctions of the site) downloading the music for free. The process is a little more intensive than the usual fare here at Phree Musique USA. You must create an account and proceed through checkout as if it was an ordinary transaction. While in her letter on the pricing policy Siberry exhorts listeners to go with their gut and not feel guilt about their decisions, something about going through the usual process of commerce, but electing not to pay, is guilt inducing. You're following "the rules" but it still feels like you're cheating. On the whole, it is a little out of character for this blog, which is mainly about just plain old free stuff - click a link, get a song, end of story. Still, the whole setup is interesting enough to merit inclusion. And there even seems a reasonable chance that the meager entertainment budget will get tapped to "do the right thing" and actually purchase some songs.
Since the amount one pays is wholly self-determined, it seems petty to nitpick about pricing, but I'm the kind of jerk that just went ahead and ordered the song for free, and so quibble I will. .99 for a download is too steep. Yes, yes, iTunes set the precedent. It's the "going rate." It's what the "market will bear." No. The point is to distinguish the alternative from the mainstream, and a price break would be a great place to start. Well, the obvious objection is that you can elect to pay whatever you think is right. But the statistics show that natural inclination - over 80% of purchasers - elected to pay the suggested price. I feel like more might elect to go through the signup and purchase process if that suggested price looked like a deal rather than the old standard. I could of course be utterly wrong. Anyway - my other small issue is that the full album pricing is inconsistent. Sometimes you end up getting a price break for downloading the whole album, sometimes it costs more than doing individual tracks would.
But put all that aside and check Sheeba Records out. The music is solid, vocal driven and lyrical. Try a couple of freebies and see if Siberry's experiment works.
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