A number of music bloggers are excited about the Subpop Singles Club 3.0. For $75 you get a year of a single a month and to be a part of “history”. The first two versions of the Singles Clubs put out a number of noteworthy and, now, valuable singles.

In the past few years, we’ve seen reunions of the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, the Police, the Verse, My Bloody Valentine and others. There are bands that swore they’d never play again and here they are, playing again. Why did they get back together? Perhaps the members matured or made-up or were itching to play together again, but they also saw that while they weren’t active, their names and reputations increased, in many cases, well beyond what they were when they were active. They could reunite and tour bigger rooms with higher guarantees than when they were an active band.

They’d get paid those sums because people are willing to put up the money to buy into that nostalgia–to see what they missed the first time around or to relive their younger days. And these bands are happy to sell it.

Sebadoh, honestly, wasn’t that good during their reunion last year when I saw them at Noise Pop but the show sold out quickly. People didn’t buy tickets after they heard Sebadoh was good or because they heard the most recent album was good or, really, any of the reasons buy tickets to a current band’s show. People are buying tickets to a name and a brand.[1]

Similarly, it seems like Subpop is selling the Singles Club brand here. How many of these bands do you know: Om, Unnatural Helpers, Tyvek, Black Mountain, Black Lips, Arthur & Yu, Mika Miko, Blues Control, Notwist? How many do you like? I know about half and love the Notwist. They’re selling these for $6.25 each (though, like a cell phone, you’re locked in with subscription, so you can’t just buy the ones you want). I go to Aquarius and buy 7″s that I know are good for $5 each.

I’m not saying that this version of the Single Club won’t put out anything noteworthy–after all, it has a pretty good track record so far–I’m just raising the point that Subpop is selling nostalgia in the same way reunited bands are.

[1] The “Beach Boys” current line up has fewer Beach Boys in it than “Brian Wilson” does but who do you think sells tickets faster?

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 10:42 pm Posted by adrian in blogs, industry. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.