You know that first time you hear an album? That's a pretty special experience. At least as someone who likes music, I think so. Especially when it's the first time you hear something you truly love. Although, regardless of whether you like, loathe or love it, it's still pretty exciting anticipating that first listen through. But the first time you hear music you love, it kind of becomes yours. Not only that, it becomes yours in it's own way that is completely individual to you. After all no-one can feel exactly what effect music, or any other art, has specifically on you apart from you. I think this is why we feel a sort of ownership over the music we really care about. That's probably part of the reason why people get so defensive when a band they follow hit the next level of fame and gain a new group of fans. It may be a bit snobby on some levels, but I can also understand how invasive it can feel when a large group of outsiders encroach on something that has felt like yours for so long. So are there ways for bands, musicians and songwriters to expand while continuing to allowing the fans to still feel like they have that personal ownership over the art that touches them? Well, I think there is and I recently experienced one of the ways it's possible thanks to the band Obsessive Compulsive and the website PledgeMusic.com.
Now a little bit of background might come in handy right now, not too much though, I have a point to make here, just enough so we know how we all stand. In a nutshell Obsessive Compulsive are a dark, grungey, angry band from Manchester who produce some pretty amazing rock tunes. Over and above that though O.C are also very driven and fiercely independent. This is a band that put up the money and work to release their first album commercially ALL BY THEMSELVES rather than wait for a big record label exec to tell them they were marketable enough. Now you're probably thinking "that sounds like it might be expensive" and you'd be right. The band literally put all they had into their first release making it all but impossible for them to release a second the same way.
Now this is where PledgeMusic.com comes into the equation. For any non-familiars reading this what PledgeMusic.com does is allow artists to fund new releases by asking fans to support it's making by pre-purchasing them before they have been made. A simply concept with big implications, as I found out.
So obviously I pledged when the campaign started (and as often/much as I could until the campaign came to a close) because, man, I wanted that album released. But the pledge you make doesn't just cover a copy of the album upon it's release. The band kept all it's pledgers updated on the campaign and the album's progress. Obsessive Compulsive rewarded it's funding fans with exclusive photos, videos and even sneak peeks of tracks in acoustic format. All of which draws you in even further and made me realise that it's not just about what you're getting out of the pledge campaign but what it makes you a part of. As a pledger I felt involved in the creation and promotion of a new album from a band I love. Realistically the percentage I actually contributed to the success of the campaign reaching it's target and the album being recorded is probably quite low. I, however, never felt like a percentage. O.C made every fan and supporter feel like they counted. So much so that they even posted a notice to say all pledgers that had ordered a cd of the album on top of the download would find to contained a special inlay with the names of all their pledgers within it. That's pretty special.
The release date for the download for pledgers rolled around on the 1st of April of this year. The wait for the release seemed to have taken so long and come so quickly at the same time. The album with the grand title of "Seculo Seculorum" (which translated means "Forever and ever") was ready to make it's way into it's supporter's lives. After all the wait and anticipation I was more happy to see Obsessive Compulsive had not lost any of their knack of exceeding expectations. I'm not going to do anything as indulgent as a full review in this post, but it would feel rather unfair to gloss over the album itself completely. So I will just say that "Seculo Seculorum" is everything a second album should be, Obsessive Compulsive have managed to evolve and mature their sound while keeping a firm grip on the what made so damn good in the first place. I've always rated O.C as a band that you feel as well hear and this totally backs me up. It was an exciting and emotional first listen through that I shared with my lady (who had also pledged her heart out on the campaign) on the evening of April 1st.
However my tale doesn't quite end there, as one of the offers from the campaign I'd taken advantage off was to get tickets to the Seculo Seculorum's launch gig a few weeks later where the entire album was played in full for the first time live. A crowd full of people who, like us, had got involved and invested in making it all happen and a triumphant band who were on top form and playing at full tilt. It felt like it was all so worthwhile for everyone involved. In giving what we could we all got to share in the band's victory. It makes me want to continue, even increase, the success of something we all made happen. I actually want this success to belong to more people.
So this one of the reasons why Obsessive Compulsive's second album feels very personal to me. That's not to say if you were to go buy it when it's officially released (which you should do, by the way) it can't be just as personal to you. Hell, their music might speak to you in ways that it's never spoken to me and that's great. All I'm trying to show is that in the this current day and age there so many more ways we can become involved in art we love. This post as been about music, but you can apply it to anything you love. There fan funding campaigns for bands, film-maker and games designers all over the place now. We don't just have to wait for record labels, publishers and production companies to put things on the shelves for us. You can play a part, however small, in making these things come to life. I've managed to and I'm about as regular as they come.
It's possible for the art you love to belong to you and to everyone else at the same time. That's pretty spectacular when you think about it.
If this post has peeked your curiosity about the band or fan-funding projects then check out the following:
