Third Eye Blind See Stem Potential
Third Eye Blind are the latest band to jump on the stem remix, er, bandwagon. Although many high-profile acts have previously released individual instrument tracks (called stems) to the public for remixing, Radiohead were the first to create a significant buzz with this tactic…
Where To Share And Make Music
This is a similar concept to eJamming music collaboration (which I wrote about last year), but the site still seems to be in public beta. Indaba, on the other hand, is fully operational and certainly boasts a slicker design, although I have yet to actually try it out for myself.
A Question Of Note – Will It Blend?
As a marketing strategy, it’s hard to see any downside to releasing stems – the Radiohead Nude project generated over 2,200 new remixes, which Radiohead retain all rights to.
On the flip side, I’m not sure that the benefits of this tack are particularly significant for more mainstream acts, and the major labels would (at best) see it as a small ancillary component of a larger promotional strategy. The target market here is home studio musicians, which is certainly a growing segment, but still a very small slice of the consumer base.
However, I still expect to see more and more acts going down this route, simply because the Internet provides a low-cost music distribution platform. For a medium to large label, it wouldn’t cost much to create a dedicated site providing stems to fans, and there’s also the alternative of using sites like Indaba if a new remix site seems like too much effort.
There may well be some potential for developing niche sites that specialise in stem release distribution (perhaps an evolution of the reeemix concept).