Week one at my new job is complete, and I’m finding myself knee-deep in the same old conundrum: you can’t just tread water, you’ve got to swim. Sure, I’ve been thinking about music and the business thereof for nearly my entire life, certainly since the day I picked up my axe way back in 5th grade. But this business of music is tricky. It’s not the same old song and dance, if you’ll pardon my awful pun.

I’ve spent the better part of the past week mulling over the state of music online, and in particular the state of fans. Ostensibly my job is one of making fans happy. After all, if you want fans to love and buy music, they need to love everything about it. They need to know that they’re getting a quality product from a source that is reliable, fair, and responsive to the consumer’s needs. It’s not a whole lot different from buying a vacuum cleaner, in that regard. But in one very important way, the music industry – and indeed any type of entertainment industry, from movies to sports to comedy – needs to respond to fans by providing three extremely important features.

1. Exclusivity
Anybody can go to a store and pick up a record. Anybody can log into iTunes and download an artist’s latest single. Anybody can watch the videos on MTV. What fans want is something special, something truly unique and rare.

The most recent trend to exploit this is the explosion of premium products and packaging. We’ve seen a massive influx of box sets, replete with full-color books, full-color picture vinyl, and a wide variety of trinkets and gadgets that fans love. In some cases, these packages can make up a huge part of the sales of new releases: Nine Inch Nails latest release, The Slip, consisted only of a free mp3 download or deluxe digipack or double-gatefold vinyl. In other cases, these packages supplement the release on traditional media.

Added value features are nothing new exactly (free mp3 downloads with vinyl purchases have been commonplace for a while now), but what makes some of these packages really interesting is their price point and their rarity. The CD version of The Slip retails for $22, packaged with a DVD and hand-numbered booklet and sticker pack, and only 250,000 copies were produced. This isn’t a one-of-a-kind item, but it taps into the very nature of the rabid fan, the collector, the fanatic, the person who has to have every version of every release an artist ever made. And as it turns out, this type of fan is more than happy to shell out the extra bucks for that level of exclusivity – in some ways the high price serves to reinforce that aura.

Exclusivity can take a variety of other forms, too. Fans will gladly jump through hoops to get something as simple as a sticker, so long as they’re one of the few fans who has one. I witnessed this with my work at the X PRIZE Foundation as well. Fans will wait in long lines, braving weather, financial hardship, or whatever else, just for the chance to get those front-row tickets. Fans will go to great lengths for the simple pleasure of knowing that they are the most accomplished member of a street team. In the end, it all boils down to the idea that the fan has proven himself, pushed himself, or sacrificed in order to attain something that no other fan has.

I’m only speculating here, but I imagine a large part of the appeal of exclusivity is the ability to live vicariously: if a fan can prove herself as the “ultimate fan” then she is only one step removed from the fame and stardom of the artist she idolizes. In some cases, being the ultimate fan can bears its own rewards, usually in the form of recognition among other fans and sometimes from the artist or label. Fans don’t want to sit by on the sidelines, they want to be a part of the action, which leads to the next important feature of fandom.

2. Access
I am lucky to live with one of these “ultimate fans.” I admit, my sister’s fandom is not for a band that I particularly like, but it happens to be the kind of band that serves as a perfect example of rabid fan behavior. I’ve had many a conversation with Lisa about what drives her, and one motivator is always at the forefront: the ability to have access to a seemingly untouchable entity.

We see this kind of behavior manifest itself in a variety of ways, most notably the typical groupie stereotype. You’ve seen Almost Famous, and you’ve listened to Bret Michaels talk about it (ok, you probably haven’t, but this is really funny). This is, of course, extreme behavior, and certainly the vast majority of fans aren’t groupies. But I think this type of mentality is just a pronounced version of the kind of access that every fan desires.

Another great example of fans’ desire for access is the “meet and greet,” a common reward handed out to devoted fans who have gone to extraordinary lengths to promote the band, or to contest winners. My sister often talks about this as the greatest kind of reward, the ability to simply meet the artist, and perhaps take a photo with them. We also see this at things like in-store CD signings. Many fans want little more than 30 seconds to just say hi to the artist in person and thank them for all of the great music that has influenced his or her life.

Some artists have taken this desire for access and converted it into an actual revenue model. Just a few months ago, drummer Josh Freese of A Perfect Circle and session musician around LA offered up a variety of ultra-premium access packages to fans: a lunch date with Freese at PF Changs, or getting drunk with the band and hanging out at his dad’s house, or going mini-golfing with some of Freese’s friends like Maynard James Keenan of Tool and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo. The price? Anywhere from 100 bucks on up to $75,000. I honestly have no idea whether anybody actually purchased these, but the point remains: fans are willing to go to extreme lengths just to meet a superstar (and come to think of it, Josh Freese isn’t exactly a household name). And we’re now starting to see this type of thing with other celebrities as well: Tony Hawk is selling similar packages for his charity the Tony Hawk Foundation.

Of course the idea of having access to a band can be a much more simple endeavor, and indeed the internet has enabled this in a way that is cheap, ubiquitous, and powerful. The rapid influx of artists to services like Twitter has proven that fans can directly connect with artists, regardless of geography or money or anything else. Twitter case studies like Josh Groban, Questlove, and John Mayer are pointed to on a regular basis as perfect examples of how fans can interact with the bands they care about. Interestingly, the internet provides an equally powerful method of keeping fans at arms length. After all, if a fan has 24/7 access to an artist, then where is the exclusivity in that?

Other artists have used technology to give fans a piece of the creative process. Imogen Heap’s upcoming release was almost entirely created on webcam, with Heap pushing out video updates via 12seconds and Twitter. Even the liner note artwork was crowdsourced, with a contest allowing fans to submit images related to the album lyrics via a Flickr group. This type of access allows fans to not only feel directly connected to the artist, but to feel as though they have a pivotal stake in the creative output as well. You can’t buy access like that.

3. Connection
My final bullet here is really a combination of the two previous points, but with a bit of a twist. You see, while fans strive to feel a strong connection directly to an artist, they also want to be part of something much larger than themselves. They want to be part of a fanbase, a worldwide community of people just like them who obsess over and devour the work of an artist. It’s not very unlike any religious organization, and it is really a typical function of the human animal.

We are, at our core, social beings. We want to be part of a group. We want to be connected to other people, and in particular those who have similar interests to ourselves. Fans have a built-in common interest, created instantly and informally. These types of communities tend to be self-organized, self-regulating, and self-perpetuating (read Clay Shirky’s newest book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, which gives an excellent overview on the nature of these types of communities). Connection is what drives concertgoers to post their videos to YouTube and write up their experience on their Facebook pages. We want to share the experience and we want our friends to do likewise.

As Community Director, it is my job to see that these types of communities thrive, and that fans are provided with the necessary interactions and rewards to drive them and to help them feel connected to the music they love. It is certainly an ongoing process, and an admittedly new one at that. It’s a bit of uncharted territory, but the concepts haven’t changed much since the days of paper newsletters and unofficial fanclubs. We just have a few new tools at our fingertips to make sure fans stay engaged, stay happy, and keep on rocking.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the ways that social media have enabled even the smallest bands to create incredibly wide audiences with little-to-no startup capital.  And this excellent post by Marko over at echo has all but confirmed it: there are no indie bands anymore.

Ok, ok, I know, the term indie has essentially lost all its meaning, but let’s look at it piece by piece.  Once upon a time, there were bands who started playing in their garage, played a couple gigs, built a small fanbase, etc.  After enough time, these bands started touring, building a bigger fanbase, and maybe, eventually, they made a recording and released it through an independent record label.  These bands were indie.

Now let’s ignore for a moment that most of the labels that we think of as independent are far from it, given their complete reliance on the majors for distribution.  I realize that this fact alone essentially proves that there are no indie bands anymore.

That’s completely missing the point: the reason there are no indie bands is because there is no need to be indie anymore.

What exactly does this mean?

• The romantic notion of a band that no one else has heard of has disappeared.  I promise that if you find a band that you think has never been heard, they’ve already put their stuff on MySpace and at least a few hundred people have heard it.  While this isn’t exactly the same as going platinum, the appeal to the indie music fan of being the only kid on the block own that record is gone.
• Bands don’t need labels, not even indie labels.  I’m going out on a limb here, of course, since the fact remains that most bands don’t have the wherewithall to produce, market, and sell their own recordings.  But if bands decided to devote even a small amount of time to building a community of fans through various social media, they can easily turn their passion into a career.  As Marko points out, nobody sets out to be small, but hard work and dedication almost always pay off.
• There are people that will do this stuff for free.  They are called fans.  Most bands completely overlook the power of their fans to motivate others.  They can do this through any number of ways: sharing content, sending emails/IM/SMS/Twitter/etc., putting your band’s stickers on everything they see, wearing t-shirts, you name it.  Fans love to do this stuff.  Why?  Because it makes them feel connected to the music that they love.
• The flipside of the previous point is that fans will NOT help you to market yourself if you FAIL to connect with them.  This idea has been stressed time and time again by every social media guru on the planet.  If you fail to engage then you fail to inspire. Fans want to feel as though the bands they love actually care about them.  They need to feel, for lack of a better term, loved.  And this holds true for every community of fans, not just bands.  Take a look at Target, or Virgin America, or, hell, Coca-Cola…. all of them connect directly with their fans, and it pays off in dividends.
• This stuff is not as hard as it sounds; the hardest part is making good music.  There’s really no other way to say this, but if your music sucks, then you can’t expect anyone to listen.  Sure, there’s something out there for everyone, and every band will have a group of devoted fans.  But if you really want your music career to take off, you have to start with the basics.

There really is no reason why a band should ever be without a fanbase.  Given the incredible wealth of resources at our disposal, every musician should be able to connect directly to the people who matter most, the fans.  And I suppose in this sense, my original premise is no longer valid.  There are no indie labels anymore, and therefore no indie bands.  And the stratification and categorization of indie v. major really doesn’t make much difference. Really, this just means that every band – from the high-school punk rockers to major-label hip-hop superstars – are as independent as we’ve seen in the history of music.  Because now it isn’t the labels that sell the music, it’s the artist engaging their fans on an unprecedented personal level.