Unsigned singer/songwriter gathers recording budget from Web 2.0 community
Sure, MySpace can get you a bunch of fans if you’re an unsigned artist, but it can’t get you the cold hard cash needed to record an album. One site that could is SellaBand, which gets unsigned acts to upload their tunes in the hope that other users will chip in to help them raise a $50,000 recording budget.
The latest person to benefit is Utah singer-songwriter Jacob Kongaika, who records under the name of Cubworld. He now gets to record his album, which will be given away free on the website, with him taking a cut of the advertising revenues. And he reached the $50,000 milestone just 150 days after signing up.
“I saw this as a long term plan, I was thinking more in the lines of 5 or 10 years, before I would have reached my recording budget”, says Jacob.
“I am amazed and overwhelmed by the support and love I have been getting by the community of SellaBand. I have always dreamed of one day being able to record a real album and maybe get a shot at doing music for a living. I guess this could be my lucky shot.”
Jacob is actually the second artist to raise the cash, following Dutch band Nemesea, while hot on his heels are London band Second Person, who are already more than halfway to a recording sessions themselves. It’s the first time I’ve come across SellaBand, but the concept does sound impressive.
That said, it’d be even better if someone could invent a site called StopaBand, where you could raise $50,000 to PREVENT James Blunt recording his next album. Count me in.
