It's a Small, Small MySpace

Despite my previous aversion to MySpace, I've come to a conclusion: maybe it's not all that bad. Okay, so there are the occasional child predators and otherwise inane rambling and David Hasselhoff-idolizing. I never pictured myself spending much time on MySpace.

That is, until I discovered MySpace music. Yesterday, the entire Gnarls Barkley album streamed. (Side note: Crazy will be the blow out song of the summer. I know it. And we will all hate it by July.)

I also learned about these enterprising young lads. Their goal: releasing 12 EPs in 2006, on the last day of every month. The March one is pretty good; maybe I'll be able to check these guys out in Brooklyn this summer. MySpace was also the first place I heard Jose Gonzalez. My wife, she's so last century: she actually heard him on NPR. I don't even know what that is--there's no triple-Dub in front of it, so it doesn't work when I type it into Firefox.

Anyway, what's fascinating to me is that this represents a major step forward in the relationship between a band and its fans: a musician no longer needs the middle man (the record companies) to get its songs out to a wide audience. No more crappy tours, opening for a bigger band, with their fans anxious for you to get off the stage. No more pressing 1,000-disc runs and handing them out for free. Now, fans actually know your music at a show. You can get new music out there early to build some hype (like Gnarls Barkley did, although I'm disappointed they pushed the release date two weeks). But more importantly, you have an instantly marketable product . . . that is seen by 65 million active consumers in the 15 to 30 year old demographic. Also, because you have to sign up for MySpace (such a difficult prospect that I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a few locked-down prisoners surfing around), there is a feeling of exclusivity. You can be the first person to discover someone, and instead of making a mix tape to share the music with your friends, you add the music to your site (or better yet, add the band as a friend and people will click through). This is essentially a form of viral marketing for people who want to find this information (as opposed to spam). I'm starting to think that, for $580 million, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation may have underpaid for MySpace.

Also, who doesn't want to be Tom's friend now? He's rolling in a share of that half-Billion dollar payday (yet he still can't fix the damn messaging).