TrueAnthem.com - Connecting Fans, Bands and Brands

As the internet has dramatically changed the way music is listened to and shared, artists and record companies must find new means of distribution/financing. TrueAnthem, with its slick interface, thinks that ads are the way to go. TrueAnthem actually sponsors ads, recorded by the artist, which play before each song. So, each and every song that you download and listen to comes with an unavoidable advertisement. Of course, this may seem like a rather poor strategy, but TrueAnthem has already raised a seed round of $2 million dollars and Adidas has signed up for an ad campaign. Listeners actually get to stream and download songs for free, while new artists get their work out and get paid for it. If in song ads aren’t for you, the site also incorporates sponsored widgets. These come with sponsor’s logos and they allow users to stream and download songs without any recorded ads.

“Music is social passion. TrueAnthem is your unrestricted music resource changing how the world shares music one widget at a time. Just grab it. Post it. Then stream or download free songs.”

TrueAnthem has a very fresh, modern interface that grabs the user’s attention. Moreover it gives new and upcoming artists a means to distribute their music sans DRM while still making money. The widgets are sleek and quite well designed.

The problem with this concept is that these pre-song ads are awkward and irritating. Users don’t want to listen to ads each time they want to hear a song; in fact this strategy may just end up backfiring, causing users to stay away from the site.