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"Humble Bundle, a group that specializes in pay-what-you-want bundles of independent games, is attempting the same model with musicians.\nThe Humble Music Bundle, released Thursday, will feature albums from six different musicians: They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, Christopher Tin, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and OK Go! \nWhile Humble Bundle has sold five successful bundles of independent video games \u2014 their last bundle grossed more than $5 million in sales \u2014 this is their first foray into the music space, though all the artists have ties with geek culture or video games. Humble Bundle's Business Developer Richard Esguerra said they were partially inspired by the success of Radiohead's recent album release, Rainbows, where they also encouraged fans to pay what they want.\n\"Our philosophy with games has been to help independent creators, support charity, and provide an unbeatable deal for customers and fans around the world, and all of those values seem to be a no-brainer fit for music as well,\" says Esguerra. \"And Humble Bundles have always been about pushing boundaries, so digital music was a natural thing to try, and we're really interested in how music fans are going to respond.\"\nCustomers will be able to pay what they want for the bundle, which includes an album from each artist, and decide how much of the total price they want to give to the artists, Humble Bundle, or two charities: Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. OK Go's album can only be unlocked if the buyer pays more than the average purchase price at the time they visit, an incentive for users to chip in more.\nThe music lineup is quite a diverse one: They Might Be Giants represent some of the oldest \"geek\" musicians around, and they crossed into mainstream appeal with hits like \"Birdhouse in Your Soul\". Christopher Tin and Hitoshi Sakimoto are both famous for their game composition work; Tin's music will be most memorable to players of recent Civilization games. \nJonathan Coulton gained notoriety for his quirky, folk-style songs about zombies, evil geniuses, or future societies where we're all ruled by a race of aliens. Fans of the Portal games will recognize his songwriting; he wrote both songs sung by the antagonist robot GLaDOS. MC Frontalot has been rapping about nerds and nerd culture for more than 12 years, and is notable for coining the term \"nerdcore hip hop\".\n\"Humble Bundle is mostly known for these massive video game bundles, so we wanted to make sure we were working with artists involved in the gaming community. These are also artists who really understand the power of the Internet and how to engage with fans in a really positive way. If the bundle strikes a chord with the community, it will hopefully expose the artists to people who should know about them (but may not at the moment), as well as help all of the artists continue to create more amazing music independently,\" Esguerra says.\nMC Frontalot, aka Damian Hess, says he jumped at the chance to work with Humble, as well as support Child's Play, a charity that provides children in hospitals video games and toys to help take their mind off what may be a very unpleasant experience.\n\"Having access to new ears is definitely a plus for me in any circumstance, and being part of a Humble Bundle event is a particularly excellent avenue, since these are happenings that everyone online seems to talk about,\" says Hess.\nWhat do you think of this model of music distribution? Would you be interested in purchasing a Humble Music Bundle? Let us know in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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