By Sruly Meyer for COLlive.com
The music industry has been going through many changes over the last 10 years. CD sales in stores have decreased to dramatic lows. Most fans are not downloading on iTunes and other websites. There are many singers, so the market is crowded. Distributors have taken too many risks and got burned too many times, which means less funding from them to singers.
It costs a lot of money to make a song, video and especially an album. So, what is someone supposed to? In earlier years the idea of crowdfunding had been brought up, and even attempted with no success.
When Ari Goldwag started doing crowdfunding a year ago, many in the industry thought this wouldn’t be the way to fund productions. Well, he has proved them wrong. Goldwag has produced several songs and videos, totally from crowdfunding. He has also produced an acapella album fully through crowdfunding.
Here is the basic idea, instead of waiting till the CD comes out to buy it, you can essentially pre-purchase the album. If you want to support Jewish music, you can also give more money. There are exciting incentives to people who pay more. This creates an amazing new avenue of funding albums.
Goldwag’s newest fully crowdfunded song and video is titled “Zeh Keli,” and it has a fun lyrics video with animation that goes along with it. The song is from the album “Yesh Li Hakol” which includes 15 diverse tracks. Ranging from upbeat and exciting – to the serious and moving.
VIDEO: Ari Goldwag – Zeeh Keili
Yesh Li Hakol – “I’ve got it all” – is the theme, and this album truly has it all. Besides for 10 tracks composed by Goldwag, the album also surprises with 5 brand new tracks that are duets – introducing the upcoming talent of Jewish music.
Featured on the album is the special track titled “Alter of Novardok’ which is a moving song of bitachon in Hashem, whose words come from a poem written by the Steipler, R’ Yisrael Yaakov Kanievsky.
Goldwag does an amazing job of promoting crowdfunding, and it’s a refreshing new way to create Jewish music. That’s the great message from music, if you want to create this art form, you can always find a way to make it happen.
As Goldwag wrote in a pretty popular song he composed for Benny Friedman, Yesh Tikvah!
His album is available now wherever Jewish music is sold. Visit his crowdfunding campaign at arigoldwag.com/newalbum
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Sruly Meyer owns and operates a marketing and branding firm, SMG. He has worked with some of the top talent in Jewish Music, including Benny Friedman, Mordechai Shapiro, 8th Day and Shmueli Ungar.
