A New Way To Relase an Album
With the deterioration of the formal record company comes the deterioration of the formal record. Big named media distribution companies have been fighting bootlegged albums ever since the consumer was first able to transfer CD’s to cassette tapes. In a world where either CD’s are instantly burned and circulated or transferred to MP3’s and hopping from one ipod to another, the artists have surrendered to the motto: If you can’t beat them, join them. Jonathan Clay, a young relatively unknown artist from Texas is combating bootlegging the only way that he knows how; by giving away his record away for free.
Seconds after logging on to www.jonathanclay.com, anyone can be the proud owner of his soulful acoustic CD Titled The Acoustic Sessions. However, the album does come with a small price: during every song, Jonathan Clay spends the first few seconds reminding us that these tracks are made possible by Levi’s 501 Jeans. Well, I guess everything can’t be completely free.
So who originally sparked the idea of free CD? Some people may say that the immensely popular Oxfordshire band Raidohead paved the way with their 2007 Internet release of In Rainbows. The band released the album via Internet with only the premise that you pay whatever you think the album is worth. A number of my friends paid about 5 pounds for the album ($8.64) while some people I know paid as high as 25 pounds ($43.19). I’m sure that millions of people acquired the album the same way the do every other album, for free, however, that still fits with the initial idea of “pay what you think the album is worth”
Other people note the Smashing Pumpkins’ 2000 release Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Musicas a main pioneer in the new age of distributing free albums via the Internet. However, this album’s release comes as a result from different circumstances involving the record company’s refusal to release the double disk album following the poor sales the previous album.
Bands such as Phish and The Dave Matthews Band owe their entire success to the free distribution of their concerts. Nonetheless, these bands owe their careers to the founders of the idea: The Grateful Dead.
So whether these albums are being distributed with the hopes of spreading music or waving a white flag to the new wave of bootlegging, the release of the free album is something our generation will happily adopt.
Patrick Kennedy
I am not sure if this is working right? I have the songs so let me know if anyone is interested. I tried doing it through Myspace today and I may just have a bad connection.
I really do think this is the way of the future. It’s not the same market it used to be–artists used to be able to sell millions of albums at the drop of a hat, but now that there’s so much pirating and peer distribution going on it’s really quite difficult to do that.
Innovative sites like iTunes really saved the industry from failing, but I think we’re on the verge of a new kind of industry, where the artists don’t rely so much on their album sales as much as their merch and concerts and followers. It’s really interesting how these artists are adapting and dipping their toes in new waters. Good article!