Amanda Palmer Gets Standing Ovation for TED Talk At TED2013

Compares Crowd-Funding to Crowd-Surfing “When You Connect With People, They Want to Help You…

Maybe instead of asking ourselves how we can make people pay for music, we should ask ourselves how to LET them.”

Watch Amanda’s TED Talk, “The Art of Asking”, HERE.

Amanda Palmer has made an art out of crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding, making headlines last year for raising $1.2 million on Kickstarter to fund her latest album. Amanda says they are simply the modern day versions of the street-performing she did to support herself for many years as the 8ft Bride, and the couch-surfing she’s done throughout her years of touring.

“Couch-surfing and crowd-surfing are essentially the same thing. You’re falling into the audience, and asking your fans to catch you,” she notes. “So when it came time to put out my new album, I turned to crowd-funding, and I ‘fell’ into those thousands of connections I’d made and I asked my crowd to catch me.”

Moreover, she believes that the meaningful human relationships that develop from these acts –and the vulnerability they require – are as old as art itself. “For most of human history musicians and artists have been part of the community – connectors and openers, not untouchable stars. Celebrity is about a lot of people loving you from a distance. But the internet and the content we’re able to share on it is taking us back, and it’s about a few people loving you up close, and those people being enough.”

Lastly, she feels that the lessons she learned as a street performer might just solve the music biz’s current dilemma around trying to get people to pay for music: “Maybe instead of asking ourselves how we can make people pay for music, we should ask ourselves how to LET them.

Read more about Amanda’s TED experience and the reaction to her TED Talk in Long Beach this week HERE on the TED blog.

Amanda’s self-released album, Theatre Is Evil, debut in the Billboard Top 10 last September, and is available for a “pay-what-you-want” price (including free) in her web store HERE.

“…one of the year’s best rock records…” – Rolling Stone

“… exactly the kind of record that makes people love music in the first place” – SPIN

 “Theatre of Evil is genius, savvy pop” – NPR

“She juggles bravado and compassion… ” – The New York Times