You Are Not Selling Music

What people buy and what they say they buy are, almost always, two different things. For example, nobody just buys a new car. When somebody gets a new car, he is buying:

• Status 
• Ease 
• Sex Appeal 
• An Ego Boost

A new car is actually a “middleman” standing in the way. If there is an easier way to get these things, or if the person already has them, there is no need for the car.

By this same token, nobody simply buys music. Most of the time, they are purchasing the feeling they get while listening to that music. For example, the relaxation they feel when listening to some gentle New Age music or the rebelliousness they feel when listening to a gangsta rapper’s opinion of the police.

Music is a soundtrack to our lives. It’s what’s playing in the background when we’re doing other things, because it helps to facilitate these other things.

Archie Bell said it best...

"Just think, no more dancing
no, no, no people dancing to the beat
They’d be no birdy to wake you in the morning
with a sweet, sweet melody"

Music is what adds value to everything else we do in life. You could still dance without music, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fun. And although birds can be very beautiful just to look at, the songs they sing add an entirely different element to that beauty, since they involve another sense.

That is the power of music. It adds a sonic element to everything else we have going on, which makes everyday experiences even more powerful. When you know this is what you’re selling, your marketing efforts will become even more powerful as well.

For a great, non-music example of this concept (although the music in the background adds to what I'm talking about), look at the commercial below to see how Google is selling its products. It's not about email, spreadsheets, maps, online video, and the ability to translate text into different languages, it's about the basic human need of connection.

Comments

[RduhTduh]

This is absolutely correct. Once an artist captures a moment there is a picture that is so vivid its equivalent to a portrait of a painting of a boy with a fishing rod in a lake. Great insight here.

[Al McCree]

David - Great article.

[thinkaboutit]

I understand the gist of your points. At the same time, you could say just the same about the clothes we wear. People buy clothes for status, ego, sex appeal, etc. but go tell the poor workers slaving in sweat shops that no one's buying the actual clothes they make. At the end of the day, illusion is not for sale except in our own deluded minds. By the same token, when we buy cars, we are buying an actual car with an engine and tires, design features and paint color. We might think we're buying the sexy girl on the hood who tempted us to buy it, but she never did come included with the car.
Just because there will always be a good number of ignorant people among us with no adult understanding of the behind the scenes process that puts the food on the table, we smarter people should not be giving in to that kind of shameful ignorance. We should instead educate people better. Perhaps start taking our children to factory farms to see how the Disney animals they love are really treated. They can call the cheese Happy Cow, but those cows certainly don't look happy. Time for us all to wake up as a nation and get our heads screwed on straight. People have every right to make their own "free" music at home that they can sing and dance to just like the old days of parlor music in the home. Mom can slave to make your clothes free of charge too. But when people want to buy someone else's work, you have to BUY that work.

[Bud Powell]

This is very true. What I capture in my songs is often emotion inspired by my life events or those of others around me.

Crazy Without You is just one example of a song that I wrote that illustrates this idea.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Crazy+without+You&c=music&docType=2