Back in the day, artists would release their albums in record stores. However with physical sales of albums starting to decline, artists have taken to digital distribution in order to sell their albums, like iTunes, for example. However even that is on the decline, which means that artists have to come up with creative ways to distribute and sell their music. We’ve seen artists like Skrillex promote their albums via video games, and now EDM artist, deadmau5, has decided to launch a subscription-based service that will give his fans access to his music, videos, and various news about his activities.
While major music services like Beats struggle to win over subscribers, artists like deadmau5 are striking out on their own with services directed at their fans. With the new deadmau5 official app for iOS, the EDM artist will charge fans $5 a month (or $45 a year) for access to exclusive music, videos, and dispatches on how his cat is doing. Deadmau5 — otherwise known as Joel Thomas Zimmerman — launched the app this week, which will serve to compliment to the deadmau5 Live community website. The move makes some sense; Zimmerman commands a massive fanbase even by outsized EDM standards, and happens to be one of the top highest paid performers in the genre. In a Reddit post published last December, he said openly that he’d had the idea “forever,” and that “most publishers and labels are, still, completely overlooking the value of an artist created / driven subscription model.” The app is currently available for iOS, and will be available for Android in the near future.
