First Web-Only Grammy Won

First, let’s all agree on something: the Grammys suck. Nine times out of ten they honour safe, dull musicians with little to say. I mean, c’mon, Celine Dion has won five.

I was interested, however, to read that jazz composer Maria Schneider won the Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album Grammy without without selling CDs in a record store (or, for you pedants, a tape, record or DVD).

Schneider, who was ArtistShare’s first participating artist, said she had funded the cost of her original budget before she started recording, an anomaly in recording, particularly with jazz albums. The “Concert in the Garden” CD was limited to 10,000 copies, with 9,000 available for pre-order to participants and 1,000 held in reserve for later auction, through ArtistShare. “This record cost $87,000 to make. I already made my money back,” she said. “I’m not splitting the profits with the distributor, the record store and the record company. It’s working so well for me,”

Those are interesting numbers–apparently ArtistShare allows artists to keep 85% (!) of the revenue they make. Via the ArtistShare site, I discovered this promising three-part series on alternative business models for the music industry.