Could Danger Mouse Blank CD Revive Music Industry Fortunes?

Danger Mouse is set to release a blank CD after a dispute with his record label led to his latest album being shelved.

The music producer behind acts such as Gnarls Barkley and Gorillaz saw his latest effort, Dark Night of the Soul, hit the Internet recently in the form of free, legal streaming content.

Though after a fall out with EMI, it is unclear whether the album, which features cameos from the likes of Iggy Pop and The Pixies’ Frank Black, will be granted a physical release.

Not to be deterred, Danger Mouse has insisted that he’ll still be releasing the actual CD, complete with a 100+ page booklet containing photographs by David Lynch and a disclaimer which states that:

‘For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will’.

Image via Wikipedia

In doing so, the acclaimed producer could potentially have come up with an ingenious idea which could serve to revive the flagging fortunes of many a flailing record label.

As the music industry falls over itself to catch up with the digital revolution and find a way to generate the same levels of income through streaming media and downloads that it has enjoyed with physical sales, it seems Danger Mouse may have just come up with the solution; sell the public blank CDs.

It might sound like a crazy theory, but think about it for a moment. It could just work.

It’s hard to deny that the Internet has brought about widespread change in the way the public listen to music. Whether it’s through streaming online radio services such as Last.FM or through legal download sites like the famed ITunes, scores of music fans are logging on to get their fix of their favourite artists.

This trend isn’t likely to fade away any time soon. If anything, as portable music devices such as the Ipod grow in sophistication and shrink in cost, it’s only likely to continue and evolve over the next few years.

All of which is good news for the consumer yet disappointing for an industry used to enjoying much larger profits from sales of aesthetically pleasing (in most cases at least) bits of plastic.

So why stop selling those bits of plastic?

Yes, efforts probably should be focused on generating sales online and giving the consumer exactly what they want, when they want it, but to do so at the expense of everything else would be to ignore a large section of the music buying public; those who actually want a physical CD.

In much the same way that some music fans who grew up in the vinyl generation stuck staunchly by their over-sized discs, resplendent with stunning artwork and well-crafted liner notes, when CDs came to the fore, there will remain a great number of music fans who, in the wake of the digital revolution, would still much prefer to have a physical disc and some attractive packaging to put on their shelves.

So let them.

By all means put the music online, convince consumers to shell out a dollar per track and make that the only way they can get hold of their favourite songs but then, beyond Ipods and computer hard drives, sell them something attractive they can keep those tracks on should they chose to do so.

Sell them a blank CD in a good-looking case with some interesting and eye-catching case for less than you’d usually sell them the complete, tunes-and-all package, and let them burn the disc themselves.

By the time you’ve sold your ten downloads and a separate case for let’s say five dollars a time to those who want one, you’re back on form. Or at least, you’ll be on your way.

Of course, all this begs one question: If you’re still going to give fans something physical, why not just carry on selling CDs the way they’ve been sold for years?

It’s a valid argument, and one that can only really be countered with the one phrase that lies at the heart of the ongoing evolution in digital media sales; consumer choice.

By letting burn their own discs, you allow them the freedom to mix up track listings and listen to albums in an order they prefer, you allow them to omit those tracks which would otherwise be skipped over with each listen and add in any rarities, live tracks or B-sides they may happen to have.

You allow them the freedom to  do all the things they can do with digital files within a medium that many music fans would be very sad to see the back of.

It may sound like a crazy idea, but here’s hoping that if fans of Danger Mouse do get to download Dark Night of the Soul, they can prove that it just might work.