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Business News Digital
Self-releasing band try fan payola to build a mailing list
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 10 August 2010
It’s pretty common these days for bands to give away a free track to anyone who signs up to their email list, though few have gone so far as to pay their fans for an email addresses. But that’s what a self-releasing band with the rather amusing (for Private Eye readers, anyway) name of The Reclusive Barclay Brothers are doing.
They will give 100 fans who sign up to their mailing list £27 in cash. They are calling the promotion ‘fan payola’, and chose £27 because it is one millionth of the amount that the US major labels had to pay out following the 2004 crack down on payola in the American radio promotions sector (that’s the band’s maths by the way, we’ve not checked their workings).
As a self-releasing band, shelling out £2700 on a publicity stunt is presumably quite a big deal. So I’m assuming the band’s members would appreciate it if you’d check out their new website – www.newlowformusic.com – where you’ll find a video explaining the promotion, some plugs for their music and the all important cash-for-your-email input box.
