Mos Def Gets in On the Musical T-Shirt Trend

Last week, I mentioned that by good friend and awesome musician, Waz, was being featured on a new album that could be obtained only with a special t-shirt.

It looks like Mos Def thinks this could be a cool new way to bring his music to the people and still make some money while doing it:

Now Mos Def is one of the first artists to release his new album, “The Ecstatic,” in a t-shirt format. Combining digital music with t-shirt design, The Mos Def Music Tee features the cover art on the front, tracklist on the back and a unique download code on the hang tag.     LINK

At $40 each, it seems possible for both the t-shirt maker and the artist to make money on a deal like this and it provides the fan with a tangible relic of the transaction, something downloading an album alone will never replace.

Even if people buy the shirt and then share the tracks they download, it is still a better result for the artist than just giving away the music.  In fact, this is the best of both worlds.

Of course, this only works if the artist can sell enough t-shirts but that basic equation is true for any business.

You can get a Mos Def shirt here.

Music Tee Another Savvy New Media Music Model

While the major labels sue their way into oblivion, many smaller concerns are taking truly innovative and compelling approaches to monetizing music.

Today, via the enviable Josh Spear, I discovered Music Tees.  These are extremely cool looking t-shirts with a great graphic on the front and track listings for an album on the back. Oh, they also come with an added bonus:

The coolest part? The hang tag sports a unique code used to download the album which is a compilation mix of said musicians. LINK

Ok, so the t-shirt is $60 and that could put some people off but perhaps the combination of a great shirt and a killer album are worth the cost.

I will say that my good friend Waz is one of the featured artists, so that is damn cool.

Someone Else Will Wear Your Shirt

Earlier I posted about a cute girl who would wear your shirt for a day and now comes a guy who will do the same basic thing – wear your shirt for a day, post a video of him wearing your shirt, blog about your shirt, etc.

His pricing scheme is strange and arbitrary – each day of the year goes up $1.  So, Jan 1 is a dollar, Jan 30 is $30, all the way up to Dec 31 which I guess would be $365.

January is completely sold out but then again, that’s his cheapest month.  I wonder what day will be the breaking point on value.  April 12? That will cost you $102.

Is this the future of advertising – each of us setting a personal value of the shirt on our backs?

(via)

Cute Girl In T-Shirt Will Shill For Dollars

TechCrunch pointed me to GirlInYourShirt, a site that offers up the promotional services on one cute young woman who, for $75, will spend the day in your company t-shirt, posting vlogs, blogs and tweets all about you and your services.

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Is this the next wave of DIY PR?  Perhaps.  I guess the question is whether or not she has that much of an audience to begin with.  If not, it is unlikely to get much interest from promoters around the globe.