- Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Fan power keeps bands rocking via record label 'My Music Company'
- Date: 25th March 2011
- Summary: VARIOUS OF SOME VELVET MORNING PERFORMING "RESISTANCE"
- Embargoed: 9th April 2011 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: United Kingdom, United Kingdom
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: Industry
- Reuters ID: LVA1PFJ0E9U5KENDVEXFIOJ8FY4N
- Story Text: My Music Company is a record label unlike others - it allows fans to invest in their favourite groups to fund the production and promotion of their first album.
All bands say they're grateful to their fans, but the groups playing under My Music Company are quite literally supported by their their followers.
British band Some Velvet Morning are one group who know they wouldn't be recording their album without the support - and cash - of their followers. 358 fans invested 100,000 British pounds in the group via their record label.
"We'd been doing our thing, we'd been getting responses from live audiences and then suddenly this global, investment, I don't know what you'd call them, but all these people, this army of people, start investing in your music and commenting 'I love it, here's some money'," said the band's lead singer Desmond Lambert.
My Major Company (MMC) is a record label unlike others.
It features unsigned bands on its website - and allows fans to buy between 10 and 1,000 GBP worth of shares in their favourite artists on MMC's roster.
When the target 100,000 pounds is reached - MMC funds the artist's album campaign and promotion.
Revenues generated by the band are split - with 20% going to the artist, 40% to MMC and 40% to the investors.
The scheme was hugely successful in France - where MMC began - and came to the UK in October last year.
"Literally four or five days after we launched we had one band funded, which was absolutely exciting," CEO Paul-Rene Albertini told Reuters Television.
Around the world, record labels have been looking for ways to beat slipping sales - as music lovers swap CDs for downloads.
With MMC, fan-investors don't just support groups by buying their records and going to their gigs - they can interact with them as well.
"Social networking sites, they become like places where there is constant communication and I don't think this is going to go away, I don't think, so the music industry is adapting," Albertini said.
For Some Velvet Morning the interaction is a way of gauging the popularity of their tracks with fans.
"We can see clearly, favourite songs, you know, standing out, and other ones which maybe weren't so, we thought were good and maybe the fans haven't quite connected with," Lambert explained.
The involvement has proved a hit with fans as well: apart from feeling they have some input into their favourite group's album, they can also see what kind of return they are getting on their investment.
"On a sort of daily basis they get stats reports on how the band's doing in the charts and things like that so they get a feel of a more kind of personal involvement," said Some Velvet Morning fan - and investor - Tony Fox.
Some Velvet Morning are hoping to bring album out in June, as yet untitled, then take it on tour.
MMC is due to roll out to Germany, Spain and the U.S. by 2012. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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