Somewhere on Amie Street

Someone wrote us an email “Hey, why don’t you write about Amie St.“.
Why not indeed…

I’m a big fan of new music concepts and start-ups, I always like finding a cool website that has some interesting new bands given the fact that MySpace has become a free for all spam community. I, myself, own a small label called Rusty Records and I’m always happy to throw some songs into these sites and reach a few more music lovers that I haven’t met already.
Last week I wrote about SellaBand which is, like Amie St., a promising new way for artists to expose their music and get a chance to earn a few dollars on the way. Amie Street’s business model is pretty easy and straight forward. They promise that they’re all about discovery, not raiding your wallet. Once a song is uploaded by an artist, or its label, it’s offered as a FREE download. The more a song is downloaded the more its price rises. So if you’ve downloaded a song for free, chance is the song is new on Amie St. (or you’re the only one who likes it) and if you’ve bought a song for 98c (top price) chance is it’s the most popular song available.
Pretty simple. I like it. The artist keeps 70% profits, gets recognition, and makes a few dollars. The listener downloads new music for free or at a cheap price, everybody’s happy, win win situation. Bottom line, if you’re into discovering new music and you don’t want to pay for it, Amie St. is the place. If you’re a music buyer then why not support some cool indie bands on the way and buy it off Amie St.
From the listeners perspective it’s perfect, but the seller/artist might still need to address some issues: Today almost any artist can distribute their music using CD Baby or even The Orchard and reach a huge potential audience through the iTunes’s of the world, and get top dollar for their MP3’s, so what does Amie St. have that these other competitors are lacking? Traffic? Potential fans? Target Audience? Industry? Or is it just another tool to promote their own band? I guess these questions will remain unanswered for the time.
And one last thing…I tried uploading some songs of my own to see it in action and it keeps giving me an error screen, but I’m not giving up, I’m sending them an email…

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Posted on November 6, 2006

Comments

7 Responses to “Somewhere on Amie Street”

Dwiz on November 6th, 2006 10:37 am

hey myspace me on the Amie Street myspace at myspace.com/musicliveshere let me know if they ever got back to you. Peace & be well
Dwiz

Rusty on November 6th, 2006 1:44 pm

They got back to me, I think you have a problem on IE7, cause on Firefox it all works perfect..
Thanks.

DaveX on November 6th, 2006 2:06 pm

Cool website. Downloaded some songs, let you know later if they’re any good.

Lucas on November 6th, 2006 4:40 pm

Hey Rusty,
Saw your email in feedback. What was the error message exactly? I’ll check out IE7 now.

Lucas

Lior on November 11th, 2006 6:04 pm

This is a great concept – somewhat reminiscent of the budget airline model (easyJet, Ryan Air). I am sceptical about new entries into the digital download arena as it is so difficult to compete for space but this company should be highly appraised (by us punters and artists) for pricing content based on demand.

In theory, such a model should encourage major labels to get involved as it provides a direct incentive for fans to buy early and spread the word before the price goes up – an incentive that iTunes, about 70% of the market share, does not provide. Conversely, unsigned artists can share their music for free or cheaply until they reach a level of relative exposure. The unit price as an excellent indicator on many levels and, dare I say, bridges the gap between illegal file sharing and fixed, 99c priced downloads?

Personally, I think a nice price tag is a nice reward for taking the time to discover new music first – I certainly expect a good price for booking my holiday four months in advance!