By Frank Portman and Chris Thacker
The devastation that the digital music revolution brought to the music industry and its reciprocally sustaining culture and subcultures has been exhaustively discussed and analyzed. The results of it are plain for all who walk in its ruins: music has been devalued to almost nothing in the commercial market, almost everyone went out of business, and the role of struggling musician became even more of a struggle.
Less discussed has been the effect of this devaluation of music from the perspective of fans and music lovers, which has been paradoxical. While there is easy, cheap access to an effectively unlimited aggregate of material, being swamped in undifferentiated “content” has not proven to be the paradise it was cracked up to be. And in a world where releasing a record typically involves little more than pressing “send”, and where consuming the music encoded therein involves little more than clicking “add”, or even just doing nothing at all and passively allowing yourself to be fed from a cloud, the resulting experience, for all its convenience, has become highly impersonal at best.
What can be done to restore the immediacy and personal quality that made bands and their “content" so compelling in the first place? No one has figured out how to do this very well. Most of just press “send" and click “add” and hope for the best. That’s just not good enough, and we decided to do something about it by--
A record label is nothing more than a curator of music. If people trust the curator's taste(s) they will buy the music. That's why it is critical to focus on working with amazing artists. When the idea of Sounds Rad was being kicked around, the first person to immediately buy into the idea of personalizing the experience of buying music was Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience. If Sounds Rad’s first principle is to curate the best possible music, then damn it, MTX has to be a part of it. And from there it became clear that to goal is to find as many existing MTX fans and create a community by knocking them on their ass with releases that they would love to hear; merch that they would love to wear; and a shared experience that makes that them feel if they are members of a secret MTX cult replete with ritual handshakes, code names, and songs about girls.
Everything that "we" (the royal we--Sounds Rad and MTX) are trying to do is based on quality: records, apparel, and the experience. Imagine this: You place an order on the Sounds Rad website. A few days later you come home to a custom designed box at your door. You run inside and carefully open the box to find a new signed limited MTX album, a t-shirt that you actually want to wear all of the time, and the knowledge that you got amazing value. That's what we want to do. Everything item sold is coming from the band to the fan: a shared experience.
The devastation that the digital music revolution brought to the music industry and its reciprocally sustaining culture and subcultures has been exhaustively discussed and analyzed. The results of it are plain for all who walk in its ruins: music has been devalued to almost nothing in the commercial market, almost everyone went out of business, and the role of struggling musician became even more of a struggle.
Less discussed has been the effect of this devaluation of music from the perspective of fans and music lovers, which has been paradoxical. While there is easy, cheap access to an effectively unlimited aggregate of material, being swamped in undifferentiated “content” has not proven to be the paradise it was cracked up to be. And in a world where releasing a record typically involves little more than pressing “send”, and where consuming the music encoded therein involves little more than clicking “add”, or even just doing nothing at all and passively allowing yourself to be fed from a cloud, the resulting experience, for all its convenience, has become highly impersonal at best.
What can be done to restore the immediacy and personal quality that made bands and their “content" so compelling in the first place? No one has figured out how to do this very well. Most of just press “send" and click “add” and hope for the best. That’s just not good enough, and we decided to do something about it by--
- Curating the best possible music from amazing artists
- Focusing the best physical product to support the music
- Creating a shared experience for fans
A record label is nothing more than a curator of music. If people trust the curator's taste(s) they will buy the music. That's why it is critical to focus on working with amazing artists. When the idea of Sounds Rad was being kicked around, the first person to immediately buy into the idea of personalizing the experience of buying music was Dr. Frank of the Mr. T Experience. If Sounds Rad’s first principle is to curate the best possible music, then damn it, MTX has to be a part of it. And from there it became clear that to goal is to find as many existing MTX fans and create a community by knocking them on their ass with releases that they would love to hear; merch that they would love to wear; and a shared experience that makes that them feel if they are members of a secret MTX cult replete with ritual handshakes, code names, and songs about girls.
Everything that "we" (the royal we--Sounds Rad and MTX) are trying to do is based on quality: records, apparel, and the experience. Imagine this: You place an order on the Sounds Rad website. A few days later you come home to a custom designed box at your door. You run inside and carefully open the box to find a new signed limited MTX album, a t-shirt that you actually want to wear all of the time, and the knowledge that you got amazing value. That's what we want to do. Everything item sold is coming from the band to the fan: a shared experience.
This shared experience is exciting. We want you to get excited! That’s why we will do everything and everything we can to get you to listen to our music, wear our march and come out to our shows. You are not just customer, you are part of our cult, cabal, faction, clique, coterie, and possibly a junta. So froth at the mouth, sing-a-long, and be rad!
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