Dark Night Of The Soul and The Music
Some days ago it was revealed to the world that Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley) and long going artist Sparklehorse was releasing a new album. But, it is being released in a very unusual way - on a blank CDR.
“Dark Night of the Soul”, as the album is titled, was to be released by EMI but after the production was finished EMI seem to have run into some legal issues and bluntly decided not to release it. Because of this, Danger Mouse and EMI seems to have got into a fight that now has ended with Danger Mouse releasing it in his own way.
The album is now available on the album website. It can be bought in two different ways, either a blank CDR together with a poster or a blank CDR together with the poster and a 100 pages book created by David Lynch. The music? For anyone internet savvy enough it will be easy as the album is circulating on the web. Why? Because Danger Mouse is not allowed by legal reasons to sell the album with the music on.
Basically, when you get the CDR you can burn the downloaded music on it and enjoy Danger Mouse’s latest album as a normal bought album.
There are some interesting discussions about this release. Firstly, how much will be made in earnings for Danger Mouse? Are music-lovers outside the US going to be bothered to spend $80, because the shipping cost is ridiculous, for a poster and a blank CDR? Or are they just gonna download the album?
More interesting, however, is the action Danger Mouse took the get the music released to the public and I’m extremely glad he did since the music is wonderful, with acts like Wayne Conye of the Flaming Lips, James Mercer of the Shins, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy and more. Just listen here at NPR.
(pic. today and tomorrow)
I believe the best about this release is that it is an artist trying out new ways of releasing their music. It is about being innovative. Of course it always add a risk factor to be innovative, but it is the only way to change the world and in this case the music industry. And of course one feel for the artists that might loose money on the internet, but that is not the problem. The problem lies in the fact that the world has changed, and the only solution is to change with it. Nothing will be solved with banning every internet user as Sweden does at the moment, yes, a bit exaggerated, but by governing the internet traffic the way Sweden does is making a big chunk of Sweden’s population into criminals. Is that a good idea?
As said, the only why to solve it is by innovating. And who is to do that? To me it is up to the people that do the distribution, i.e. record labels and artists. Because whether you like it or not consumer does not have that kind of power. The consumer only have the power of in agreeing or disagreeing. And for a time now they have been disagreeing. And until the ones in the power of distribution comes up with an idea that the consumers will agree with the problems will stay the same.