Jill Sobule back in business
Jill Sobule rose to widespread popularity in 1995 with her song “I Kissed a Girl,” supplemented by her contribution to the “Clueless” soundtrack, “Supermodel.”
Unfortunately, the mainstream media hasn’t heard much from her since then. However, now she is back in the spotlight because of her most recent album, “California Years.”
Accepting donations
It’s not the music on her new album that’s receiving all of the attention, although Public Radio International says her latest release “has a full quota of her witty pop songs.”
Jill Sobule’s album has garnered international attention because of the way she paid for it. No, she didn’t use military payday loans in the U.K. She paid to record, market and distribute “California Years” with donations from her fans.
Jill Sobule explains it all
An article from Public Radio International says when Jill Sobule got fed up with working with a record company, she came up with a way to produce an album without one. Jill Sobule explains her strategy:
“It’s not a huge, huge fan base, but it’s a mighty fan base. They are very loyal, and I think part of it is because I always write back.”
She sent an email to her fans and asked, “What do you guys think about becoming my record company?”
There was some strategy involved from the start. “First, I had to think about how I would do it because I didn’t want to say, ‘Just give me money,’ it had to be in return for something, sort of gifts and services.”
Telethon not included
Jill Sobule describes her strategy as “very public radio.” In exchange for donations, she offered her fans items including mentioning them in the CD liner notes, showing up at their houses to play them songs and writing theme songs for individuals who donated $1,000.
“The best one was — this was a total joke; I didn’t think it would happen — ‘weapons-grade plutonium, where you get to sing on my record. A woman came in from the U.K. She did a bang-up job, I must say.”
Bringing in the big bucks
In all, Jill Sobule raised $75,000 in fan donations. She says she spent about half on recording the album and hiring a producer and half on marketing, publicity and distribution — things a record company usually funds.
Getting out from under a record label means Jill Sobule won’t have to split her profits, follow restrictions or demands set by the label or go through a label when planning her tour. Jill Sobule was happy with her newfound freedom, but says getting away from a record company didn’t fully eliminate stress:
Even though she wasn’t “working for the man” in recording this album, Sobule says that there was a different kind of pressure. “For the most part, it was better. The scary part was you better make sure that the people who donated, liked it. It was way more intimidating than ‘working for the man.’”
It isn’t unheard of, and there are some big artists that do things independently or in alternative ways. Prince, for instance, went off-label years ago, and most of his recent albums you have to get off his website. Nine Inch Nails, same thing – every new album gets put up for download instead of putting CD’s in stores, and they, or rather Trent Reznor, does pretty well. It’s actually not even a new phenomenon. In the 80s there was a large underground network of “tape traders,” meaning that fans would get the cassette recordings published by a band, and by trading tapes from person to person would slowly but surely get music from coast to coast, continent to continent. In the early 80s a similar thing happened with a band that really didn’t fit in with glam heavy Los Angeles, who put out a tape demo and it went through the tape trader’s network, and got picked up by a tiny record label, later by Elektra, and ended up with massive success without radio or MTV, sold millions of albums, toured everywhere, and is the only group to have 5 albums debut at number one on the charts. That band is Metallica. A lot of artists can have great success without a traditional distribution deal.