Humble Music Bundle does for music what Humble has done for games -- DRM-free, pay-what-you-like, awesome

The wonderful folks at Humble Bundle -- who produce pay-what-you-like bundles of DRM-free media, inviting customers to apportion some or all of their payments to charity -- have expanded from games bundles into music. The just-launched Humble Music Bundle includes work from They Might Be Giants, OK Go, MC Frontalot, Christopher Tin, Jonathan Coulton, and Hitoshi Sakimoto. It's DRM-free, it's pay-what-you-like, and it's amazing music, too.

Humble Music Bundle

(Disclosure: I am the volunteer curator of a forthcoming Humble Ebook Bundle)

• [5onthe5]

  Great idea. Just wish I was more interested in the artists involved. Maybe it’s worth a pound or two to support the cause.

  All speed with the ebook bundle!

  • [Michał Michalski]

     try maybe musicrage.org – budles with music sorted by genre.

• [Thad Boyd]

  Anyone know about label affiliation?  I don’t buy from RIAA affiliates.

  My understanding is that TMBG own the digital rights to their music but I don’t know about the other artists.

  • [leebenningfield]

    I don’t think any of these bands and artists have any involvement with RIAA affiliated labels anymore.  I know TMBG has been independent since they left Elektra in the 90s, and JoCo and Frontalot have always been independent.  It looks like OK Go has released albums through Capitol Records but now they have they’re own independent label, and it looks like Christopher Tin is self-published as well.  The Valkyria Chronicles music comes from games published by SEGA.

• [slippy0]

  Whenever I talk to people requesting a Humble Music Bundle, I tell them that Bandcamp (http://bandcamp.com/ ) does this every day, because that’s their business model.

  It just takes a little bit of digital bin-digging.

  EDIT: In just posting that link, I stumbled across this because it had cool album art, and now I got if for free, sans DRM http://haywyre.bandcamp.com/album/infinite

  • [Dean Putney]

    Some friends and I are collecting our favorite BandCamp albums here: http://deanputney.com/music. We do the digging all the time and post the best ones to share with each other and everyone else.

  • [Zak McKracken]

    Thanks a bunch for pointing me at bandcamp where I just found lots of very cool musik which I never knew existed, and I like it and this is a cool thing. Why didn’t I know this before?

    Not so good thing about the site: I just spend a lot of time there while I should be in bed instead of glued to the computer. Thanks anyway

• [Alex Stott]

  This is awesome, I saw it was a Humble Bundle and downloaded it on a whim. To my delight, I love everything in it – I *really* love it.

• [apwnalypse]

  It’s a good idea, but they need to be more specific than just calling it a “music” bundle: they should group songs together by genre, local scenes or some other sort of theme. “Their stance on Intelectual Property,” doesn’t count: that’s like putting together a football team of the players who do the most work for charity, rather than those with the most ability. The “and it’s amazing music, too” line gives this away: if this is to be a sound business model rather than a charity case, then that should be the most improtant thing, not an aside.

  People like to say they like a wide variety of music, but if it’s just a selection of random songs from T-Pain to The Editors to Improvisational Jazz, it’ll be no better than those CDS they give away on the front of magazines. No one will want to buy that other than for the novelty, humble bundle value. It would be a great way for, say, popular blogs to sell their favourite 10 new tracks of the month.

  • [Zak McKracken]

    Actually, it’s pretty well targeted at the internet nerd demographic, it just spans a few musical genres. Which makes it kind of hard to like each of those albums. Im my case, I was happy to see OK GO and They Might be Giants in there, but the OK Go thing is just remixes of 4 songs, the Giants album is kind of cool, but everything else is just not quite the thing for me. So I think I’ll pass on this one. Would have been cool if they had focused on a slightly tighter range of genres and maybe not included just a remix album of OK Go but a proper one, or a collection of their videos which are the actual reason why I know them in the first place.

    Come to think about it: Since I set the price I could just pay what I like for the Giants and ignore the rest, but for some strange reason that feels unfair or not right or as if I was ordering a pizza with everything, eating only the ham off it and throwing the rest away. Can’t really tell why.

  • [wildemar]

     Isn’t it odd that people would say this (and I find myself agreeing, albeit reluctantly), but no such complaints were raised about the games bundles. Not that I know of, anyway.

    Do we have a greater tolerance for different genres of games, but less so for music?

    • [penguinchris]

      I have bought all of the bundles, paying above the average, but the only game I’ve actually gotten around to playing is World of Goo which was in the very first bundle. I am not really interested in most of the games, though there are a few others I will play eventually (Braid being the big one). 

      I think though that the games do all go together well – they’re not all the same genre or type of game but they do all seem to fit together. They’re essentially their own broad genre, in the way that, say, Super Nintendo games are a definable type of game despite there being a large variation within the set.

      Of course, with their selection of music they’ve accomplished pretty much the same thing. Most people will probably not be into all of it but it does all go together and it is not just a random selection. I think apwnalypse’s comment was a bit half-cocked.

  • [Tomash]

    MusicRage (musicrage.org) does something like this, i.e. bundles of music grouped by genre. Last round had 4 packs: metal, rock, indie/alternatice, ambient/electronic. Today-tomorrow they should have a landing page with details about the last round’s albums.

• [paulehoffman]

  > (Disclosure: I am the volunteer curator of a forthcoming Humble Ebook Bundle)

  Yes yes yes!

• [nova77]

  Great idea! And to anyone curious, Christopher’s album is exceptionally good. I wholly recommend it.

• [Robbie Coleman]

  A humble ebook bundle would be AWESOME! Do it Cory! :)

• [jere7my]

  I’d gladly pay full price for a CD of TMBG B-sides (like They Got Lost), since that’s where a lot of their most interesting work shows up. So I figured $15 was a good investment — and it was! Reviews:

  I do indeed like the TMBG album a lot, and consider $15 a fair price for that alone. The JoCo tracks fill a few gaps in my collection, and he closes with a very strong live performance of Still Alive. I’m not usually a remix guy, but I loved OK Go’s Of the Blue Color of the Sky, and the J. Arthur Keenes Band chiptune remix of This Too Shall Pass is worth a few bucks all on its own. I’d been meaning to check out MC Frontalot’s nerdcore for some time, and am glad I did — he’s got twisty, self-deprecating wordplay that reminds me of Lyrics Born. Hadn’t heard of Christopher Tin, but I’m listening to his album now, and it’s gorgeous. Don’t know anything about Hitoshi Sakimoto, and I don’t usually like video game soundtracks, but I’ll listen with an open mind.

  I didn’t see this as an opportunity to buy six albums I like; I saw it as buying two or three I’d like, and opening myself up to surprises. Given the price-point, if I end up with one good album out of it, it’s worth it.