Martin Thörnkvist is the Head of Label at Swedish pop label Songs I wish I had written, one of the founders of the organization The Swedish Model and Music Strategist at Digital Renaissance.
He is operating from the southern Swedish city of Malmö. He holds a strong belief in the abilities of a great melody, is confident about a flourishing future musical landscape and is a great advocate of the internet as distribution tool.
In 2000 he founded a Swedish web fanzine called Revolution #9. They wrote about up and coming Swedish indie acts. This was before Myspace and in order for the readers to listen to the small bands (artist like Peter Bjorn and John and Jose Gonzales) they wrote about, they created a shop and asked the bands for records to sell. The fanzine emerged compilations, clubs and two summer festivals. When the team behind it got tired of it, they separately went on to start two magazines and two music labels. Martin started Songs I Wish I Had written.
Martin and his music label is the living proof that you can spread great art over the world and create a profit for musicians without having anything to start with. That it’s possible to build a music label in the twenty-first century and be a part of, and drive, the music business from down the tail. With no money to start and expand with, he succeeded by giving the music away for free. Every time a new set of songs is released there’s a free option for the fans to listen to and help spread the word further.
Apart from the label Martin also does consultant work and lectures about ways to make money on digital content with ‘free’ involved in the business model.
The Swedish Model is an organization consisting of 7 Swedish independent record labels. On the agenda is restored focus on music and being a positive voice from within the business. The foundation believes that the creative businesses will not stand and fall with an economic model or a physical product. The unique thing about TSM is that they are both rights holders and have loads of ideas on how to use free as an option in their business models. They also believe that the bad will created by the old music companies in recent years has hurt us as well. Therefore they see it as their responsibility as futurist music labels with a strong belief in music to convince major players in the business that the future is bright – if only you open up and embrace the new possibilities.
External links: Songs I Wish I Had Written, The Swedish Model, Digital Renaissance.
