Swedish Band Releases New Album As A Magazine

from the new-distribution-channels dept

Wed, Apr 14th 2010 12:22pm — Martin Th�rnkvist

The Ark was among the last Swedish bands in the late 20th century to sign an old school major label contract. On April 26, they are releasing their first album after that contract expired. Instead of making it as a plastic disc in a plastic case, they've decided to do it in the form of a magazine (99 Swedish kronor, around 13 USD), with cardboard sleeve holding both the paper and the CD.

Here in Sweden, as record stores are closing, shops selling magazines are opening at about the same pace. Therefore, it's an interesting strategy for The Ark's upcoming release to be done as a magazine. In terms of physical distribution, it means that their music is available in 1,100 stores instead of just the 110 record stores that are left in Sweden. Also they'll be able to sell the product with 6% VAT instead of the usual 25% VAT, since magazines and books have that lower VAT in Sweden. That equals 19 Swedish kronors per sold copy in "discount" or markup.

To further understand the band's reasoning, I called The Ark's manager Jon Gray up:

Why did you release a magazine?

For many in the younger generation, music is something that's for free. The idea is to work with another form of packaging, to raise other values around the music. The genius is not the idea, but implementation. That we took this from start to finish.

We have not only created a product but also an extended network of resellers to sell it for us. For us it was about creating a new dealer network in addition to the traditional music trade. The 1,100 stores that sell this product are located everywhere including where people live.

What is the product you created?

When we released the Jesus Christ Superstar album (the singer Ola Salo had the title role in the Swedish production last year and did his own translation), we worked with Johannes Sjöberg at So Music, who previously have done some fantastically special editions release of, for example, Astrid Lindgren's life. When we planned the release of the new album, we asked Johannes if he could come up with an idea.

The result was a 100-page magazine with high-quality images, text and design. Sandberg & Timonen made the design and well known Swedish writers such as Andres Lokko, Jan Gradvall and Hanna Fahl have contributed with the text. Also, for Ola Salo as a lyricist, this format is a dream. Rather than get 4 separate texts stuffed together on a 12x12 cm cd booklet page, here each text has its own full page. It's almost a return to the LP format.

Do you think that others will copy your concept?

Yes. Generally speaking, all other revenues for recorded music negligible. Recorded music is free, there is no other business model that has taken after where the CD left us. Whether it's digital downloads or Spotify. There is no money yet. If we become the best selling album in 2010 and the best-selling monthly magazine ever, as I believe we well, it's obvious to me that others will follow our example.

This text was originally posted in Swedish the media cluster organization Media Evolution's site.

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Filed Under: business models, magazines, music industry, sweden

24 Comments

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A Dan (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:37pm

Tax avoidance?
1. Is it possible that this could be considered an illegal dodge of the 25% VAT by claiming it's a magazine when it's intended as album distribution?

2. This seems like it could be a cool idea to start up a true magazine-based "label", with a different band/album each month. Then you could actually have subscriptions, especially if you limited the magazine(s) to a single genre. How well it would work would, of course, depend on execution.
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:46pm
  
  Re: Tax avoidance?
  From my understanding, they're selling the magazine and the CD comes gratis. But the gov't goons will soon up the VAT on magazines once they catch on. But they were going to anyway, because magazines are becoming more popular.
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- Karl (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:57pm
  
  Re: Tax avoidance?
  Tons of music magazines already include CD's with songs from reviewed artists in them. This seems like a really good variation on that idea.
  
  I don't know how well that would work in America, though, since nobody reads magazines anymore.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:41pm

over glorified album sleeves
wow im ....not impressed
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:43pm
  
  Re: over glorified album sleeves
  What the hell are you talking about? It's worth it for the decently-sized lyrics spreads alone.
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 3:15pm
  
  Re: over glorified album sleeves
  And yet you give very little reason as to why you are not impressed. Your lack of substance is less impressive.
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NAMELESS.ONE, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:43pm

and its not a comic book ffs
its a music cd in a sleeve at the back of blah blah blah
and YOUR PAYING extra for that ramble ....
stick to making music as if this were the norm hollywood would make us all pay 29.95 JUST for the album er magazine sleeve then another 29.95 for the plastic
then you have there cuts
OMG NO NONO
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:50pm
  
  Re: and its not a comic book ffs
  "and YOUR PAYING extra for that ramble ...."
  
  "99 Swedish kronor, around 13 USD"
  
  Goofy Canadian, learn to read. The price is about the same (actually, a little less) than you would pay for a CD in most places except for Japan.
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- Derek Kerton (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:56pm
  
  Re: and its not a comic book ffs
  You've missed the point. No one is forcing you to buy the magazine if all you want is the music. You could access the music for free over sharing networks. That's what the manager meant when he said, "music is something that's for free." If you don't do sharing networks, maybe you could buy just the music CD online, or the songs through iTunes or similar.
  
  But this is a way of offering a Reason to Buy something. Many customers will choose to do so. Some other people will get the music for free from their friends, and perhaps subsequently take an interest in the band and buy the magazine.
  
  The music acts as promotion for the physical product.
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Yogi, 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:57pm

Love it
I think this is ingenious. Great implementation of RtB.
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- :Lobo Santo (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 12:58pm
  
  Re: Love it
  Same here! RtB indeed.
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Jake, 14 Apr 2010 @ 1:19pm

A Historical Aside
The Ark's second album, In Lust We Trust, was released with DRM that actually forced you to play it through the on-disk player instead of Windows Media Player. I can see why they decided not to renew their contract.

And thanks for giving a mention to one of my favourite bands ever.
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Trish, 14 Apr 2010 @ 1:40pm

great
i like this idea, it could work for any level of musician. i donèt buy magazines, but a lot of women i know do, to get stories about celebs,make-up, fashion, travel, etc. why not a mag with a bunch of stuff about a band? behind-the-scenes, making of's, lyrics, personal stories, and they could even sell ad space (bigger bands, anyways). sounds like a great added value for customers. customers who purchase the mag could get access to online chat for fans, chat with the band members, first dibs on good seats at concerts, so many great ways to make money without pissing anyone off. i love it.
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tatheg (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 2:10pm

VAT
Hmmm, Value Added Tax .... and they are actually adding value .... Not like when you buy a used dresser and are required to pay VAT on it when the only value added is the dust ....
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Nick Mc, 14 Apr 2010 @ 2:52pm

Not a really new idea
Music with magazines has been quite common in the UK for ages. I remember buying magazines with a 12" vinyl album included back in the 80's called Debut. It was great stuff. Many BBC magazines and other magazines such as Mojo will include a CD now. The difference is these were/are compilations not a release by one band. I think it's a cool idea and would likely buy a copy if it were in the local Chapters bookstore (not really likely though is it).
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 3:29pm

magazines? hello buggy whip!
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- Anonymous Coward, 14 Apr 2010 @ 5:41pm
  
  Re:
  Buggy whips are still valuable products in niche markets.
  
  Magazines are just as marketable, provided that you're selling to people who want magazines.
  
  The problems with buggy whips is when you start lobbying the government for buggy whip protections, and when you start suing everyone who makes your precious buggy whips obsolete.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 15 Apr 2010 @ 7:00am
    
    Re: Re:
    Free CD with each buggy whip....?
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Suzanne Lainson (profile), 14 Apr 2010 @ 8:18pm

Magazines are old media, but creating a magazine is a way to help a band?
I'm a fan of magazines, so I like to look at them, though I don't buy many anymore.

And I've subscribed to Paste in the past to get the free CD every month.

But after reading so many articles about how both CDs and print magazines are in the decline, I find it ironic to read that packaging them together is a good marketing idea.

I guess everything comes full circle. Just goes to show that maybe the people who used to do this had the right idea after all.
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Hephaestus (profile), 15 Apr 2010 @ 6:28am

I just realized something
If the record labels wanted to sell more records why didnt they lobby to reduce the taxes on CD's in sweden?
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Anders, 15 Apr 2010 @ 7:46am

hate still buy
I'll really hate The Ark, but I'm going to buy this album/magazine anyway.
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Always Right, 15 Apr 2010 @ 11:02am

This is not a new idea
the brooklyn label Famous Class Records puts out every band they release as a CD in a screen printed "magazine." And there are plenty of audio magazines that come similarly packaged.
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lons, 17 Apr 2010 @ 10:30pm

not that cool
this idea is boring, who wants a bunch of shitty magazines anyway? I cant help imagine the awful graphic design that this kind've release will inspire

na, Vinyl or free it will be for me.
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Fredrik Ekman, 20 Apr 2010 @ 4:34am

Swedish band "Cult of Luna" re-released their album as a book
FYI, A similar story from last year.

http://cultofluna.com/evigariket/
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