By now, I’m sure everyone with a computer is aware of the “tip jar” model that Gregg Gillis (a.k.a. Girl Talk) instituted with the download of his new album, Feed The Animals (TMT Review, TMT News). This week, however, the Los Angeles Times reported that Girl Talk’s record label Illegal Art aims to make all of its future releases available via the tip-jar model. Specifically, this means that each of Illegal Art’s 12 bands will be using the “pay what you want” model by the end of the month, including past records that have been previously released on CD.
According to Illegal Art owner Philo T. Farnsworth, Steinski will be the first among this batch to utilize the model. “With older material, we have nothing to lose,” Farnsworth said. While that may be true, it will certainly be interesting to see how some of Illegal Art’s relatively unknown bands fare with this new system.
