Imogen Heap: Connecting With Fans By Having Them Help Her Create New Album
from the very-cool dept
Whenever I talk about the whole Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy (CwF+RtB) concept, one person that lots of people kept telling me I had to pay attention to was Imogen Heap. Unfortunately, I didn't attend MIDEM this year, so I missed out on seeing her speak at the event. But I did hear about her announcement of plans to crowdsource her next album, soliciting all sorts of help from her fans (with whom she had already built a deep connection via her music, of course, and her very active use of Twitter). The idea is that every three months, she'll work on a new song, asking for various contributions from her fans, which she would then weave into the final offering.I hadn't kept up on how that project was going, but Zoe Keating (another musician doing some really fascinating things), directed our attention to a wonderful blog post from Ian Shepherd describing his experience helping Imogen create one of the songs from this new album. He notes that he's a huge, huge fan already, and when she asked fans to contribute images and "5-word moments of clarity" to a special "interactive cloud" on her website, he did so. What he didn't realize was that she was then going to invite some of the people who contributed cool stuff to appear as extras in the video for the song. It came as a complete surprise, but he went, and it sounds like it was a fantastic experience for all involved:
So, the video is shot, now, and being edited as I type; I’ve met and made friends with the other five people whose “moments” were chosen; I’ve chatted to Kelly about production techniques and I’ve heard a sneak preview of heapsong2 in progress. I can say that it sounded as lovely as anything Imogen has written so far to me, and that the 3D audio aspect is going to be extraordinary – and that Nick and Imogen have a mammoth task ahead of them to get the song finished in time for it’s planned release on July 6th, in less than a week’s time.Shepard notes that this sort of level of connection seems to come naturally to Imogen. Beyond just Twitter, she clearly embraces opportunities to interact with fans at shows and in other ways as well.
I can also say that Imogen is exactly as charming, quirky and inspirational as she appears in her songs, interviews and webcasts – and crucially, that her interest in her fans and their impact on her music is absolutely genuine.
Think about it – in reality we five “bubble people” were effectively unpaid extras – but very willingly so. We all took time off work to be part of the video shoot – or college in France, in Izzy’s case. Santina actually booked her flights from the USA and a week’s leave with only two days notice, before she even knew she was finally going to be picked !
Separately, Shepherd properly points out that this kind of connection can work for people at all levels (something we keep saying, but people keep insisting isn't true). Imogen is definitely a big name, with a big following, but others are doing similar things on a smaller scale and it's working great:
And, while we keep hearing recording industry execs complaining about how the industry is "dying," every day we hear more and more stories of musicians building huge, loyal audiences (who are happy to pay for scarce value) by connecting with their fans.I’m sure some people will be muttering at this point that we can’t all be Imogen Heap – after all, she started out on her one-and-half-million-followers-strong social media adventure with a hit album and several TV synchronisation successes already safely under her belt. That’s a pretty convincing head start, right ?
Well, yes – but I see plenty of much smaller artists successfully making a similar approach work for them every day in my Twitter stream – like Zoe Keating, or Hope & Social, or Matt Stevens, or Steve Lawson, or Kate Havnevik, or Laura Kidd…
You can do this stuff, too. Anyone can do it – all it takes is time, energy, imagination, connection – and a little musical ability, of course. Laura is great evidence of this – as she’s said herself, she didn’t have any fans before her first album – but her second has already been 50% funded by the fans that first album found for her – in advance.
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Filed Under: connecting with fans, ian shepherd, imogen heap
Reader Comments
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Re: Damn I screwed that up
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It's not exactly a grand future, is it?
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Builders sell houses for full price up front. They don't split the house into a million parts and sell them seperately over time. It isn't very logical to compare a house builder with a musician, unless you think you should only pay $15 for your house.
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I heard that correctly?
OMFG!
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Neither do musicians, I'm sorry you can't get this.
Besides, even with your astoundingly poor analogy about what I presume is the royalty model, that's not the only model available to them. If a builder were to decide to sell in the way you describe, why would he be expected to be subsidised if he failed to sell the number of parts he expected?
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This is a group who has been producing zero-budget videos for only a year. They have no funding, no marketing team, no PR firm, no releasing studio, no lawyers; just talent and proof that they can pull off their ambitions.
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LoL
I saw a paycheck of this one guy once, he got $150 bucks from residuals and royalties.
LoL
Is that better than having to work for the rest of your days, like everybody else?
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Artists who want a retirement fund have to be able to ask for it.
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Fans WANT to Pay
That leaves the big labels with their back catalog and a collection of poor artists who do not have good business advice. The big labels are heading to be a whole lot smaller, financially speaking. The executives are not happy about that. However, they will get over it, when the right-sizing is finished. The primary job of the executives should be to prepare their label for a future in which the revenue stream is a whole lot smaller, without letting the business slip into bankruptcy. Most of them will fail at that task, judging by their miserable non-adaptation so far. Expect some nice bankruptcy sales.
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it's great
Try that with any high and mighty big control freak pop star.
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Imogen
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Re: Imogen
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He's also media
He notes that he's a huge, huge fan already, and when she asked fans to contribute images and "5-word moments of clarity" to a special "interactive cloud" on her website, he did so. What he didn't realize was that she was then going to invite some of the people who contributed cool stuff to appear as extras in the video for the song.
I'm guessing he was invited not just because he likes Heap, but also because she assumed, correctly, that he would write about the experience. So I'd say this is a case study of some fairly traditional PR techniques. In other words, invite the media for an inside look at your projects whenever you can.
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Re: He's also media
If you actually read the blog post in question, you would see that was not the case.
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Re: Re: He's also media
I was one of over a thousand people who made a suggestion – you can see it by following this link and searching for “stereo” – without realising that Imogen planned to invite 5 or 6 people to appear as extras in the video for the song. So it was a complete surprise to me, when I was one of the people she asked !
She could have very well recognized his name and out of the 1000 people who submitted suggestions, chose him because he is a blogger. His account doesn't say that 1000 names were put into a hat and she invited the first five names she drew. It doesn't say the selections were totally random. Perhaps they were, but I'm guessing that who made the suggestions played a role in who got invited.
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How well would this scale?
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Re: How well would this scale?
...as are approximately 99.8% of artists.
This is actually a large part of the argument being made. The industry used to be set up around a small number of outlets, a small number of middlemen and they used to have to depend on massive sales to make ends meet. Most artists fell by the wayside, but they got the occasional Beyonce or U2 to keep the business flowing.
But, that model no longer makes as much sense as it used to. For the vast majority of artists, this is a good thing, as it is for many people who are fans of those artists.
"How would this scale for bigger artists"
Why does it have to? One of the points usually discussed is that there's hundreds of models possible. This one might not be right for some artists. That's OK, the traditional models aren't OK for some others. Choice is the factor here, especially for genres considered "uncommercial" (like guitar pop, hip-hop, house music, etc. used to be considered at some point).
"How would this apply to genres like those two artists record and perform in?"
Forget the marketing bull. The genres they record in are pop/R&B (with a heavy slice of pop) and hip-hop respectively. There's plenty of successful artists in both genres who haven't filled arenas, and that's not a bad thing.
It also depends on what you call "success". owning mansions and being splashed over every tabloid is not every artist's idea of success.
"Beyonce's fanbase is global, yet her musical "flavour", especially in her concerts are very "louisiana/deep south"
While I like some of her stuff, let's face it - most of her recent appeal has been based around her dancing around in lingerie and making vapid "girl power" statements that were stale when the Spice Girls (themselves a marketing creation) did it. She has some good tunes for clubs, but it's hardly original. Disagree if you like, and I'll admit I haven't listened to her full albums, but maybe that's why she's popular. She has talent, but that's not what got her where she is.
"How about Kanye's music, most of the reasons why it is good is because it is so very unexpected."
Hmmm... That's subjective, but I've never been a fan of Kanye's sound. I'll admit he does take some chances, but it depends on where you come from. For example - his "Stronger" single from a few years back: mindblowing to some people I talked to in the US with its incorporation of electronic dance music and collaboration with Daft Punk. A fairly decent if unspectacular sample of a very popular song from a very popular act to those of us in Europe...
...and that's part of what these new models are all about. Music is subjective. One person's new God of music is another's tired hack or untalented amateur. Getting the chance to connect with the artists you love and for them to make money without the middlemen? That's something...
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Re: Re: How well would this scale?
"One of the points usually discussed is that there's hundreds of models possible."
Well fair enough! The reason why I'm thinking of these big acts is that I think there are some performances/concerts/videos that wouldn't have been possible without the amount of financial and social clout that they possess. It would sadden me for the music world to be reduced to a stream of "mom-and-pop" and "starving" artists. It takes all kinds, and the big, rare, super-stars just seem to be more vulnerable in some ways, than the small indie artists thick on the ground in europe and north america.
What you say about Beyonce, well though I am a fan, fair enough it's all subjective. But there is a reason she holds the record for "most grammy's won by a female in a single night", though admittedly it would not be apparent listening to her radio singles. For Kanye, well, that track never really blew my mind either. It's his production skills, and the fact that he tends to pre-empt most of his genre-mates that's so crazy to me. Kanye is actually a pretty mediocre rapper, just like Beyonce is a pretty mediocre song-writer.
I agree with most of the sentiments on this site, that copyright is getting to long, that laws surrounding it are getting crazy, that record labels have too much power over artists, and treat them unfairly. I'm just wondering about how my favourite artists are going to weather the storm, that's all. It's true that if they can't survive, then they can't, no one owes them a living. But I'll be sad...
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Re: He's also media
This is just a quick message to say that I'm 100% certain Immi had no idea I ran a blog - mainly because she had no idea who I was when she answered the door, and even at the end of the day hadn't remembered my name :-) (I don't blame her, I have the same problem !) The same goes for her management team.
I made my submission using my personal email address, my five-word phrase and a 30-word description, just like anyone else. Is it possible they googled everybody's names ? I suppose, but they're all too overworked and busy on genuinely interesting things to bother, in my opinion...
I'm sure everyone involved knows on some level that this idea is superb, "natural" viral marketing, but I'm also just as sure that's NOT why Imogen does it this way.
As another example, at the release party on Sunday, as well as the "bubble people" there was a chap called Jonathan, who met up with her and Nick Ryan the day before to record ambience and take impulse response samples in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. What this actually means is, they burst balloons together :-) We were hardly a high-powered crowd.
To be honest, if there's a covert "method" in all the Heapsong2 madness, it really isn't working very well...!
Ian
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