New Album - A PledgeMusic Project
The cat is out of the bag. This is Juliana's new project. A new (possibly double) album project. Electric band, baby.
All the details are at Juliana's PledgeMusic project page where she says:
I invite you to participate in the making of my new album. You are the modern Medicis and I need your help to make this happen. Your pledge for any of the items and experiences I am offering will directly support the recording, production, packaging, and marketing of my new album.
Various options are available from pledging to buy the CD, through signed artwork and up to a day in the recording studio(update Apr 8 - the studio offer has now been withdrawn).
Some kooky options are there too, including a 15 minute Skype call which has already been snapped up, and the creeptastic prospect of a 'lock of Juliana's hair'.
This seems a natural progression from the honor system downloads, running her own record label and selling custom made songs.
Would anyone be surprised if Juliana lost money on How To Walk Away yet turned a small profit on Peace & Love? This, despite the latter selling far fewer copies? disclaimer: this is 100% uninformed speculation. smiley winking face.
Without a traditional advance from a record label, can non-stadium filling artists justify the expense of a full studio production and promotion?
In the dying days of the Juliana forum, there was a frequent debate on how artists can earn a living from their work in the digital age, a debate only heightened by Juliana's 'Song For You' custom project.
Often veering into the awkward territory of indirectly telling Juliana what we thought she should do (doubly awkward as she never asked us!), the forum consensus seemed to suggest something similar to Kristin Hersh's CASH Music projects and using some of her Strange Angels ideas without the subscription model.
Basically, most of us seemed to come up with the main principles of PledgeMusic before PledgeMusic existed. Now it does and it seems to make perfect sense for Juliana.
Let's really hope this works out for her, and by consequence for us fans too.