EMPTY CD ON THE SHELVES

WHILE THE MUSIC INDUSTRY DROWNS



A TURKISH BAND IS GETTING READY TO DELIVER

THE LAST NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

Physical music medium sales, like on CD or cassette, are going down all over the world. Even though the digital music industry is growing at a rapid pace, it still doesn’t help with the fact that the total size of the music industry is in recession. Just like -constantly hissing but portable- casettes made the brilliant sound of the LPs history, the convenience of the MP3 is trenching the CD’s grave. 

Meanwhile, an independent band from Turkey is getting ready to declare something that many companies turned a blind eye to. Cicibebe, a band from the capital, Ankara, is releasing a “music” CD with everything (lyrics, photos, info on the cover, the CD print, etc.) but music. This “compact risk” is actually an empty CD that looks exactly like a music CD.



The infamous alternative rock band Radiohead has led this scene by giving their audience the power to decide the price of their album. It is known that live shows are becoming more vital while recordings are losing importance lately –and that’s probably why Coldplay was reported to be giving away CDs in their concerts. Even the most hated man of the known world of rock, Lars Ulrich, who played the leading role in the legal battle with Napster, gave up clinging onto the reason for getting this title and Metallica made it possible to listen to their album on their website. It is expected that the final step of this process will be the replacement of physical mediums with digital music platforms. The release of an empty CD seems to be one of the most interesting milestones of this process and probably is the “last nail in the coffin” -just like the title of the CD- of the music industry. 

There’s a short explanation of the subject on the band’s website www.cicibebe.org:

"There’s no password, program or music in the CD. It is completely empty. The songs in the album are available to download in MP3 format for free and the listener who wants to have a physical album will be able to get it for 1 USD/1Euro/1 TL depending on the country and burn the songs in it.

We don’t expect any income from the CD sales. It is enough for us to state that there’s no difference left between a music CD and an empty CD, and to be the ones who said the final word. "

The way that the band will make money from their music is also very interesting. By getting sponsors on the website where the songs are released for downloading, they plan to make money not from the sales but from the advertisement revenues. This system is already used by an array of Internet sites ranging from personal blogs to news sites, however it’s the first time it will be used for music distribution.



"Distributing songs from the Internet and getting revenue from advertisements based on traffic is a way that every musician on this planet can follow it. We explain how we did it step be step on our website." 
Cicibebe is getting ready to release a music video (for real this time) alongside with the album. The complete album will be released on the 25th of May from www.cicibebe.org. The band will be touring in Turkey and Europe during the summer.