December 4, 2007 2:00 PM

Aspiring MySpace rockers: keep the day job
Posted by Douglas Eisenhartat 2:00 PM

Aspiring musicians with notions of fame and fortune will take heart at today's announcement that website MySpace.com has launched a new program that allows them to charge for their recordings:

MySpace, the social networking site where people create home pages and embellish them as they would a dormitory room, plans today to start selling songs and trying to position itself as a destination for hearing and buying new music.

In a program called Transmissions, MySpace is inviting musicians to choose a studio venue and select the songs they want to perform. MySpace will show and sell videos of the performance.
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For years MySpace, now owned by the News Corp., has served as a promotional platform for artists and labels, primarily through the MySpace Music portion of the website. Now the company wants to provide a sales component. Unlike Apple Computer's iTunes music store, which charges a flat rate of 99 cents a song, MySpace will let distributors set their prices.

Hmmm. The model holds appeal, although having to record in one of MySpace's designated studios (their space, I guess you could call it) is not necessarily ideal. Presumably you, the musician, pay for the recording time? Unclear. But it's an interesting twist on the early days of rock and roll when you and your buddies would hang around the studio back door hoping for an audition and a shot at cutting a 45.

Hmmm. Depending on cost, If this works and provides not just exposure but an opportunity to generate a revenue stream, it could be worth it. It might be big - huge, the democratization of the recording studio and a whole new mode of distribution. It's a nice marriage of MySpace's give-it-a-spin platform and iTunes' pay-per-song model. Maybe also a good place to get noticed by labels (if you even need one anymore).

But for now, the Job Blog advises the following strategy: check it out, give it a whirl, but just in case you and your bandmates don't make it to the top of the Transmissions charts, keep the day job.