Ad supported music sites

There has been a lot of talk around the music industry about the idea of ad-supported music sites. It seems that many in the business (particularly the technology folks... go figure) believe that music is no longer something people want to spend money on and therefore we should turn music into the same form of media as television or radio by using ad-supported sites.

The most recent site I discovered "ad-supported-music.blogspot.com" goes by the motto "Don't Sell the Music - Sell the Time Spent Listening to the Music"

Something about this strikes me funny.

I think that a lot of people have a very important and personal relationship with the music they listen to. When you connect with a song, an album or an artist, it feels like a part of your identity. And the idea of putting a piece of advertising between the listener and the music feels like a violation of some sort of trust between the listener and the artist of the music.

This is the main reason why I feel that music will not become exclusively advertising supported. It may work for certain types of artists who are much more commercially driven (Hannah Montana, Britney, Madonna, flavor of the month celebrity / singer) but I don't think it will work terribly well for independent music artists who are artists first and business people second. (or third or twelfth or whatever...).

However, I do think advertising supported music sites are a good idea. I think they will be a great outlet for getting new music into the attention of new listeners. Most people don't want to spend money on music they've never heard before. If advertisers are willing to spend money that way, then I think it's great. But I don't think that most people really want advertisements on their iPods.