TAKING STOCK: The Bowie bonds were not...

TAKING STOCK: The Bowie bonds were not available to the public as a stock offering. But if this is a success, could that be the next step? Wouldn’t many fans jump at the chance to “own” a piece of their favorite rock star or band, the way sports fans could buy into the Boston Celtics when the team went public a few years ago?

“It would be completely crazy going public,” says Burnstein. “It means you’re betting against yourself. Either you’re saying, ‘My career has peaked and I’m gonna take everyone for a sucker and sell stock when I’m at my high,’ or if you think you haven’t peaked and you sell off, say, 25% of your worth and the stock value doubles, you’ve lost 25% of yourself.”

To Zysblat and Engel, there’s an even greater fly in the ointment.

“Disclosure requirements are so brutal,” says Zysblat, who recalls ABBA selling shares in the Swedish stock market in the early ‘80s. “A star has enough problems keeping his life private.”

Says Engel, “An artist would open himself up to endless lawsuits. If he made a bad album, stockholders would sue, claiming that he didn’t try hard enough.”