Music fans and the World Wide Web are a hot combination. Already there are more than 50,000 Web sites created by fans of such groups as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Rolling Stones.
Several electronic music retailers such as CDnow are tapping this potentially lucrative market with creative Web sites that allow shoppers to listen to music before placing an order.
But now Chicago’s Andersen Consulting and Geffen Records are developing a more sophisticated Web site to go after real hard-core fans.
Dubbed “Deep Music,” the Web site would allow customers to listen to unpublished material from their favorite artist or band. If they like what they hear, devotees could purchase the music on a track by track basis and download it to their own hard drives. One track might sell for about $2, say Andersen’s consultants.
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Buyers also could keep their tunes in a virtual “track rack” on the Deep Music Web site, where they could listen to them anytime they had access to a computer.
And Geffen is exploring the possibility of doing a deal with a third party such as Best Buy that would “burn” an actual compact disc with the selected tracks in any order.
The first music to be offered would be digital recordings of Nirvana’s concerts made by the band’s bass player, Krist Anthony Novoselic. These are expected to be hot items because the band broke up after the death of its leader, singer Kurt Cobain.
But Deep Music’s selections are likely to eventually include other Geffen artists, such as Chicago band Veruca Salt, Hole and Counting Crows. The site also would offer musician biographies, photos, song lyrics and information about musical influences.
Geffen also is interested in expanding the site to include artists from other record companies, said Mara Devitt, associate partner with Andersen’s retail practice.
The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t put the record company in competition with music stores, because the Web site offerings aren’t published anywhere else.
Stay tuned. A start date hasn’t been set yet.
Cocooning no more: When consumers began spending less on fancy clothes and more on their homes in the early 1990s, futurist Faith Popcorn coined the term “cocooning” to describe the phenomenon.
A number of retailers such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Carson, Pirie Scott & Co. have tried to exploit that homebody mindset by creating freestanding furniture stores.
But cocooning is losing ground to investing, says consumer analyst Britt Beemer, author of “Predatory Marketing.”
Based on a furniture-buying index he has created, Beemer predicts furniture sales will be flat for the next six months to a year as consumers continue to put their money into the soaring stock market, not the living room.
Shop till you drop: A gigantic sale featuring fashions from Tweeds Catalog will be held at Navy Pier on Sept. 5-7. More than 50,000 pieces of classic women’s clothing, mostly fall merchandise, will be sold at up to 80 percent below the catalog’s retail prices.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in Festival Hall B.
Carsons voices: Carsons is reprising its Christmas CD promotion featuring Phase II, the Chicago a cappella group that sings the bluesy tag line to its hip, urban-oriented advertising campaign.
Last year, Phase II worked with Carsons to produce a holiday CD and cassette entitled, “It’s My Favorite Time of Year.” This year, the group–Anthony Robinson, Reggie Scroggins, Tori Lockett and Bobby Gene Scott–is working on new arrangements of holiday songs and carols.
All proceeds from both CDs benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs.