So i've been doing stupid pointless surfing, because i'm stupidly pointless like that. And I tripped over a very interesting site. SliceThePie, which offers winners of contests 15,000 pounds (or $30,000 US) to finance the artist to release an album and start selling. Here are the details.
- Artists join an arena on their site, and upload 3 tracks they think could win.
- The Arena opens up for "scouting", this is pretty much people reviewing the music, what they liked, what they didn't like, and score it according to how marketable they think the song is. Or at least, that's how they should score, there are some morons on there. More on scouting later.
- After all this scouting, based on score, the top 20 artists are thrown into a showcase where people vote for and possibly buy "Back stage passes" (more on that later) on their favorite artists to help fund their album release.
- The winner of this showcase, earns 15,000 pounds, no matter what happens. The other artists, if they manage to sell 3,000 backstage passes (they're 5 pounds a pop), they also get financed.
SO WHAT'S THE CATCH?!
- The album you release, 2 pounds per album sale goes to SliceThePie, BUT THAT'S IT! Everything else goes to you, which is a lot more then what you'd expect to get on a record deal. On top of that, STP will release your album online through various venues like iTunes through the business tunecore.
- You keep all the rights and ownership of your music. If you want to sell them for anything else, you are more then free to.
Backstage Passes. WTF?
STP has a "stock market" for up and coming musicians that they finance. You can buy "contracts" which is just their word for shares, and the better the artist does, the more money you make. A backstage pass is something you can buy from them during the showcase stage for 5 pounds a pop.
Each Backstage Pass entitles you to:
1. A free digital copy of the album.
2. Participation in the recording process
3. The exclusive right to buy up to 5 Contracts at 10p ($0.20) each (rather than £1.50) in respect of each Backstage Pass you own.
There is also a virtual market if you'd like to try your hand at it and see what happens in that respect.
A bit on Scouting.
Why should you consider this? If nothing else you'll get nothing but raw, brutal feedback on your music. The scouts on this site are not usually musicians themselves, so they will tell you straight up if they think your stuff can contest in the music market. That or they'll tell you what they liked and what they didn't, with an emphasis on what they didn't.
You should be aware that these scouts get out of their way to try and find flaws in your work, so do expect a bit of bruising. If you have a fragile ego, might want to consider not joining.
Scouts also get paid for their review. 3 pence a pop for starters, or 6 cents US, which is really why I joined, to review and help finance some much needed equipment/software.
Some extra information
Why did I think to post this here? Because 1, I love you guys, and 2, thus far all the music i've heard in that place is general rock and old, tired rap. Same garbage again and again. The extra spice and much deserving talent found here would change that. Sign up lads, we'll attack the site together! me, MilkMan-Dan, and Jazza have already thrown our hats into the ring, LETS DOMINATE THIS BLOODY PLACE >:(!
Feel free to ask me anything, i've pretty much memorized the site inside and out, let me know if you've joined, it'll be fun!
