A Life Worth Living

What a novel and brave way to promote a music album.

FreeDerekWebb is the place to go to download Mockingbird, the latest album by Derek Webb, lead singer of Caedmon's Call.

All you have to do is fill in your name and email address, send a link to five other friends, and viola! A free music album with 11 song tracks!

Why is he doing this? In his words:

one of the things that excites me most about the future of our business is how easy it is becoming to deliver music to people who want to hear it. i heard a story once about keith green caring so much that people were able to hear and engage with his music that he gave it away for free, which was a very difficult and expensive thing to do at that time. it's actually never been as simple as it is today to connect music with music fans. and i want people to have a chance to listen to mockingbird and engage in the conversation.

What impressed me the most however, was not because of his belief in "music for the people", but the fact that after you've downloaded the music you get taken to a site that basically asks you to think about this:

Now that you've saved $10 or so on a free record, consider giving it to some of these good people.

He lists three different non-profit groups, all with good causes, and is basically allowing groups he believes in to profit from his talent.

Mockingbird is also for sale in the shops. I can only wonder how well sales will be.

Technorati tags: Derek Webb, free download, music