What if a label could use crowdsourcing to figure out how to maximize an artist's appeal? When it comes to the decline of the major labels, a lot of people are upset about what that may mean for the future of artist development. Because it was ultimately funded by profit-minded executives, you could argue that artist development is a mixed blessing, but it's pretty undisputable that the money for it is drying up across the board.
A new label thinks crowdsourcing could fix this at a number of levels.
A (very) small Canadian label called Triadster Records is giving this a try with Fan Talk, a kind of sounding board that “focuses on getting fans involved in the artists being signed... as well as sharing their opinions on what they like to see offered to them."
Though Triadster seems to fall under the Sunset Island Records umbrella of “Sites that capitalize Words and put them in Quotation marks for no Apparent reason," the idea behind Fan Talk is kind of intriguing. There are plenty of artists that feel uncomfortable thinking about non-musical aspects of their careers, and using crowdsourcing to open up these discussions about them could be tremendously valuable for everybody involved.
Of course, the main reason artist development is drying up is economic, and that, potentially, is why Fan Talk might be helpful in overcoming that same obstacle. If it were to become big enough (and thats a big if), Fan Talk could have the potential to galvanize funding of these ideas, too: if a bloc of fans decides that an exciting, newly signed artist would sound great with a soul band behind him, and they succeed in convincing a label to make that happen, those same fans would theoretically be much more active in pushing and getting people to pay for recording or touring costs.
At this point, this is all purely theoretical, and its pretty unlikely that Triadster (which contracts its own models [!] to further assist you in looking your best) is going to be responsible for many case studies. But if some large-ish label wanted to roll the dice with a pop star prospect, we wouldnt be opposed. In theory, at least.
