CBS's Last.fm aims the camera at a number of worthwhile recording artists in the inaugural iteration of Last.fm/Presents, its new video interview channel. They've come out of the gate at a full sprint, with interviews from some fairly serious badasses discussing their musical influences and flightier topics:
All of the interviews were conducted during a three-day period at SXSW, but Last.fm is readying more interviews to post in the coming months. And the company has more plans for creating original content rather than licensing it from labels. "Last.fm/Presents is our first foray into original content," said
Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel. Aside from the interviews, the company plans to post footage from its live events and possibly other original stuff as well (could a Last.fm label be in the works?).
Anyone with deep enough pockets can license approximately the sameset of content, so a growing number of online music companies areseeing the value of producing content themselves. Not only does it meanthey get to keep more of the resulting revenue, but it also gives themsomething no one else has, creating a draw.
It's also worth pointing out that unlike MySpace, Last.fm givesindie artists and labels a percentage of advertising revenue. Ifad-based music is the future of the industry, MySpace is leaving indiebands out of it. As I told Stiksel during a meeting last month, Last.fmcould benefit from a potential band exodus from MySpace if the sitecontinues to give indies a raw deal. Most artists would probably prefer to send their fans to a site that pays them in return for their work.
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