SonicAngel | Music Industry Reinvented
At Twiistup 8 Bart Becks (prior CEO os Belgacom Skynet) took the stage to present SonicAngel, a startup that is challenging the current music industry business model. Becks teamed up with Maurice Engelen (Lord of Acid’s Praga Khan), for his extensive knowledge of A&R, Promotion and the music industry. SonicAngel combines crowdsourcing and corporate sponsorships to ‘prefund’ the production of an artists album without incurring debt.
Traditional model for record labels is a 90-10 split, where 90% goes to the label that funded the artist. SonicAngel splits profits equally between the artist, crowd sourcing and themselves, the label.
The most intriguing part of SonicAngels model is the crowd sourcing. Fans can log in to SonicAngel and purchase a FanShare. For $13.50 (cheaper than a traditional album) a fan invests in the production of an artists album, gets a free download of it once produced and has an opportunity to share in the profits from the album. The most successful example of this is their first signing Tom Dice. For every $13.50 invested by a fan, a net profit of $35 was made.
As a fan, I now have a vested interest in the success of the album. I will share, tell and talk about this artist to everyone. In the case of Tim Dice this social sharing pushed him to a number one single and album right out of the gate.
SonicAngel will touchdown March 3rd in the US with a concert at Club Nokia headlined by Praga Khans group Lords of Acid. I am interested to see if the model and interest will convey here in the states.
What do you think? Would you help prefund and artists album?
SonicAngel Part 2
