Sometimes a crowdfunding campaign comes along that’s too good to turn down. Other times a project for cat music appears that, to any right-thinking adult, should be avoided. Yet, somehow, that hasn’t proved the case.
Crowdfunding originally filled a niche in society, easy access to money for people with cool, snappy, quick ideas.
That niche has since evolved to more zany campaigns and, if you look around enough, it does seem that a lot of the projects on the likes of Indiegogo or Kickstarter are absolutely crazy.
The aul ‘throw enough of it at the wall, see what sticks’ idea comes to mind. What’s great about crowdfunding, though, is it’s incredibly difficult to find the perfect formula for success.
Why do some decent ideas fail, disappearing with little or no interest, while other equally decent ideas rack up stupendous amounts of funding? Basically, it can’t be as simple as adding 15 uses to a hoodie, surely?
The Baubax multi-functioning hoodie, if you please?
Waste of time
It turns out trying to work out a formula is a waste of time, for, right now, as you read this, a project to fund the release of an album of music “scientifically proven” to cheer up cats is absolutely tearing it up.
Seeking an already outlandish $20,000, over 6,500 backers have funded the campaign to the tune of $150,000, with that figure continuing to rise with well over a week still to run.
David Teie is a music maker of some esteem. Such esteem, in fact, that a 2008 Washington Post article wrote that his music “would have been major hit on the cat-music Billboard charts, if there were such a thing”.
Teie has worked on human music (written by humans, for humans), monkey music (written by humans, for monkeys) and now, naturally, he’s delved into the realm of cats.
If anything, Teie is dominating the trifecta of internet, cats and music to such an extent that, if anything, you just wonder what species is up next?
Man-made obstacles
Of course, it’s not as easy as playing any random rubbish and calling it cat friendly. There are obstacles, too. For example, all the software and hardware in the world, created for making music, was created by humans, not cats.
“I will need to make many modifications to instruments and use extensive post-recording editing to create the right sounds,” said Teie.
Another problem is the speed of the music, which Teio records at 1/3 pace, “which means I need to compose and record three minutes of music for every minute of music heard in the song”.
He has it harder than Beethoven.
Some celebrity cats from all over the world of Instagram are endorsing the campaign:
A song of your choice
Some of the pledges are hilarious. For just $1,000, for example, five backers will have a track on the new album named after their cat.
At the other, more successful, end of the scale, almost 4,000 people have pledged $15 for a digital download of the album.
When something gets backed to this degree and I don’t understand why, I come to the realisation that I, in fact, am the odd one.
Pretty moody looking cat with a guitar image, via Shutterstock
