Million Dollar Begging
In September 2007, Radiohead stunned fans and executive music producers alike, when they chose to release their album, In Rainbows, without a record label and without a price tag solely through their website, Radiohead.com. Instead of following in accord with the understood and common practice of the multi billion-dollar industry, this innovative band decided to place the pricing gun in the hands of their listeners, giving the fans the power to name their price for the anticipated product. “Pay what you want,” the popular band instructed.
Since 2010, Amanda Palmer, a high-browed, loud-mouthed artist, has been broadcasting this same message to her small, but fiery fan base. Scheduled to perform on November 22 and November 23 with her husband, Neil Gaiman, in New York City’s Town Hall, this revolutionary punk-cabaret singer is not afraid of asking for the funds and resources she needs. On her website, Amandapalmer.net, Palmer invites lovers and haters of her music to promote her art and further her message by asking them to provide any type of financial support they can. Donating=loving she proclaims – borrowing the phrase from her friend Maria Popova’s blog. As Palmer notes, this is what she is all about. She wants to rebuild the lost connection between artist and consumer. She wants to bring back the voluntary fan backing of an artist. Desirous to maintain an emotional connection with her audiences, and fearless of the repercussions, Palmer has professionalized the act of extending her hand in a humble gesture of beggary, in return, receiving, not only countless couches to crash on, but also more than a million dollars in accumulated donations.
In a multi-billion dollar industry, fueled by sales and protected copyrights, Palmer plays the disregarded social recluse who possesses fantastical ideals of togetherness and unabated kindness with her fans. This avant-garde artist further goes against the industrial giant in her promotion of torrenting, downloading and file sharing amongst listeners of her art; embodying the beggar’s hat that once stood at her feet as a street performer in the early 2000s. In her Ted talk, “The Art of Asking”, Palmer shares with the audience that she does not want to make people buy her music, she wants to let them. She wants to provide fans with the opportunity to put their trust in her. She wants to form a multitude of kinships based on mutual respect and understanding. Help me help you. Despite the childishly optimistic connotation of this sentiment, Palmer’s financial strategy has actually proved to withstand the test of a reality filled of greed. In 2012, Palmer’s month long Kickstarter campaign for her album, “Theater is Evil”, raised $1,192,793 in fan donations. This unprecedented crowd funded total exceeded her expectations by more than ten percent, proving her art of “begging” was not as unreliable as one would normally believe.
Despite the immense success of her Kickstarter campaign, Palmer was thrown harsh criticisms and inquires about her expenditures after she continued to ask for charitable donations and free labor. In response to said criticisms, Palmer provided her fans and haters with a long winded, heated blog post which provided detailed – though estimated – mathematical calculations (addition, subtraction, and percentages) based on all of her acquired expenses including: distributing her music, touring, living, and paying her large, but personal staff. “In reality,” she pondered, “I could send you all cheap-ass jewel case CDs, fire my staff, make a cheap book on xerox paper, and tour just with a solo piano, with no crew, no band and RAKE IN THE DOUGH…but the products would suck and the tour would be a solo piano tour and nobody would ever trust me again.” With this sentiment, Palmer reintroduces her reasoning and rational for raising funds through donations instead of through sales.
Money is needed in order to excel in the entertainment industry, but acquiring this vital money does not have to be an emotionless exchange between artist, producer, and consumer. Artist can take a stance in how they want to generate their funds, and how they want to allocate such funds. Trust, love and emotion, Palmer ultimately argues, can be put back into the artist and consumer relationship. In controlling her own finances, Palmer gains the responsibility and power to do whatever she wants with the donations she receives – only in good faith does she allocate the funds according to the desires and interests of her contributors. Because she is backed by her fans, and not by a record label, Palmer is given full control over her art – no one can tell her what she can and cannot do.
This risky yet rewarding, vulnerable yet empowering, optimistic yet forthcoming form of financial generation fosters “the help me help you” relationship Palmer so greatly yearned for when she initially began crowd funding. Like the revolutionary bands before her, such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, Palmer is looking to her fans and letting them decide how much her music is worth. She is letting them decide for themselves whether they want to fund the continuation of her career. In their hands she vulnerably lies. I am putting my faith in you, she is saying, hopefully you will catch me if I fall, but I will not force you to do so. In an idealistic world, Palmer would be able to provide her fans with free entertainment, but because the industry she has chosen to make her living in prevents her from doing so, she has adopted this next best form of give and exchange.
Works Cited
“Amanda Palmer: The Art of Asking.” TED Talks. TED. California, Mar. 2013. Ted.com. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. <http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking.html>.
“Amanda Palmer: Visionary or Egotist?” The Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/22/amanda-palmer-visionary-egotist-interview>.
Edidin, Sarah. “The Art of Asking Why We Hate Amanda Palmer.” Web log post. Wired.com. N.p., 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/03/amanda-palmer-2/>.
GingerTom. “They Walk Amongst Us.” Rec. Apr. 2013. The Walk Amongst Us.
Sisario, Ben. “Giving Love, Lots of It, To Her Fans.” Nytimes.com. New York Times, 2 June 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/arts/music/amanda-palmer-takes-connecting-with-her-fans-to-a-new-level.html>.
Tyrangiel, Josh. “Radiohead Says: Pay What You Want.” TIME.com. N.p., 01 Oct. 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. <http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1666973,00.html>.
“WHERE ALL THIS KICKSTARTER MONEY IS GOING, by Amanda Fucking Palmer.” The Official Website of Amanda Fucking Palmer Yes It Is Amanda Palmer. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://amandapalmer.net/blog/where-all-this-kickstarter-money-is-going-by-amanda/>.
