Marillion singer Steve Hogarth has recalled how the band pioneered crowdfunding after being dropped by their major label in 1995, running a pledge campaign to fund their 2001 album Anoraknophobia. The approach became a template later adopted widely across the music industry, though it lost credibility when the platform PledgeMusic collapsed in 2017 — by which point Marillion had already moved on, having released F.E.A.R. through the service a year earlier.

In resurfaced 2016 comments, Hogarth was scathing about the major-label system Marillion escaped, saying label executives were driven by commercial potential rather than love of the music, and revealing that most label staff had no idea how poorly artists were paid. He recounted telling a woman in a label office what the band actually earned and watching her reaction in disbelief, adding that only a handful of people in a label's business affairs department truly understood artists' royalty terms.