They Might Be Giants Open Their Own Music Store

slothdog writes "They Might Be Giants have opened their own music store, featuring "highest quality" (256kbps LAME) un-DRM-encumbered mp3's. There are only two CDs currently available (at $0.99/song or $9.99/album), but presumably more will be added as time goes on. Looks like a great way to directly support the artists."

Comments

Dial a song

[LurkerXXX]

Don't forget their dial-a-song site!

They've got some intersting old stuff on it.

Dial-a-Song

LOL ... it's DOT COM!

[cagle_.25]

From the website:

TMBG and the fine folks at homestarrunner.com are teaming up for a number of projects. The folks who brought you Strong Bad are working on an animated internet video of "Experimental Film" TMBG's upcoming single off "The Spine." John and John also recently sat down to an impromptu jam session with the Homestar puppet and performed "A Little Help from My Friends" and some Billy Idol songs nobody knew the words for. Hear TMBG music at www.homestarrunner.com (email #99)

hehe.

Re:Nice.

[Flounder]

"Blue Canary" is actually called Birdhouse in Your Soul. Both "Birdhouse" and "Particle Man" are off "Flood".

Currently, only two TMBG albums are available. "NO!", their children's album, and "They Got Lost", a collection of rarities. But I'm going to assume that they will eventually have all of their albums available. Of course, I already have all of their albums on CD (and several on vinyl).

Continuing a long tradition

[iamdrscience]

They Might Be Giants were one of the first artists years ago to release an album ONLY in MP3 emusic.com which, while it's not as cool now, for a little while was pretty nice, it was cheap, DRMless and available in multiple formats at multiple bitrates.

Beyond that though, they regularly put songs up on their website, including exclusive unreleased songs (similar to their dial-a-song service where you call up and hear a new song on their answering machine).

Do not suck? They got a cameo role...

[leonbrooks]

...in Terry Pratchett's Soul Music ! They've gotta be good!

'So what do you call yourselves?'

'Er - dwarfs, Mr Dibbler,' said the lead dwarf.

'"Dwarfs"?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Why?'

'Because we are, Mr Dibbler,' said the lead dwarf patiently.

'No, no, no. That won't do. That won't do at all. You gotta have a name with a bit of-' Dibbler waved his hands in the air, '-with a bit of Music With Rocks In . . . uh . . . in. Not just "Dwarfs". You gotta be . . . oh, I don't know . . . something more interesting.'

'But we're certainly dwarfs,' said one of the dwarfs.

'"We're Certainly Dwarfs",' said Dibbler. 'Yes, that might work. OK. I can book you in at the Bunch of Grapes on Thursday. And into the Free Festival, of course. Since it's free you don't get paid, of course.'

The last line proves that Terry really does know about the music industry. (-:

Live Phish

[dopaz]

http://www.livephish.com/

They have both MP3 and FLAC of their shows, and they are available within a day or two of the show. They have "every show Phish has played since 12/31/02" along with some other shows too.

Re:Nice.

[EvanED]

The change of the "work for hire" definition was snuck in via a technical amendment to The Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999.

AFAIK, it has not been struck down.

Weedshare.com sets a nice balance - Weed files.

[Tem Noon]

I love "The Might Be Giants," and it's nice to see them taking this step, but not every musician can start their own on-line store. With Weed files, you just need to have the files on a web site.

With Weed, musicians always get to set the price of the song (usually about a dollar, of course) and get 50% from every sale. Weed publishers Shared Media Licensing, Inc gets just 15%. 35% goes to the people buying then sharing the music. (20%, 10%, then 5% commissions) And sites like ShareNewYork.com make it very easy to buy Weed files, upload them, and review why it's and great song, why you chose it. Whatever the cost of the song, if 5 people buy it, the song has paid for itself. It's also a great place to look for new songs, because most songs are posted with a few words from a fan.

Weed files are legal to share, and will play 3 times for free (on Windows Machines. Macophiles, I feel your pain) They are ideal for new musicians, since it is usually free to get your music in this format, and the music must be original. Now that CD Baby has endorsed Weed, 65,000+ musicians can convert their files by oping in to Weed as part of digital distribution, again for free.

Oh, and Heart's new Album, Jupiter's Daughter, is available in Weed.

For some reason, this Weed - CD Baby deal is completely below the notice of the media. I think it's the biggest deal in OMD since MP3.com went public, but the media doesn't get it. Anyone see anything about it here on /. ? What's up with that? CD Baby gives that needed catalog of 100,000+ files. As a whole, CD Baby represents 230,000 songs, but it remains to be seen how many will opt in.

With Weed files, there's actual potential for income for everyone ... musician, distributors, and even fans! The better each does their job, the more everyone will make. Music becomes a capital investment. it makes new business models of music possible. Now is the time to get involved.