April 16, 2004

Beating the file-sharers at their own game Recently, bands releasing new albums have been making use of the internet to promote their music, rather than attempting to shut it down. Bands such as The Liars, Wilco and Tortoise have been streaming their whole albums onto the internet.

In fact, Wilco have been at this a while: they streamed their last album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, back in 2002. As well as displaying a refreshing degree of trust towards their fans, it also shows that some bands are starting to understand the nature of most file-sharers: that they use peer-to-peer software to try out new music before buying it. Anyone got any other streams they know about? Seems that the Liars have recently changed from the whole album just to clips, but it was there before. Trust me.

posted by Blaise Bailey Finnegan 20 years ago
  • BBF, I remember that the Liars site had the mp3s. In fact I downloaded a few, and meant to go back and get the rest, but now it appears to be too late. Maybe the record company flipped out... I don't think it is very smart to put the whole album out there on MP3. That would leave zero incentive to go out and buy the CD. But its nice when they put up 3 or 4 tracks, some remixes, to whet the appetite. And streaming the whole thing is nice as well. God forbid a band should be judged on the quality of its music...
  • Here's one big database of trade friendly bands. Some others can be found at Webbed Hand Records. The big database is very much a mixed bag. Some of the artists stream, some offer fully zipped albums of mp3s, some give away individual mp3 tracks and some offer *shudder* Real Player tracks.
  • Bands that put albums up via realplayer do not count as digital music friendly. They put it up through Real because they know that way noone will listen. If you're that desperate to lock people out, just build the mp3's into a flash site. Most people can't be arsed to learn how to work around that.
  • lovejones, I'd have to disagree with you there. Like I said, most people (that I know, at least) use the internet to discover new music, and to preview it before buying it. There's something so much better about a CD than a bunch of CDs, that only begins with the sound quality. I'd never heard anything by Wilco this morning. I'm definitely buying the album now, and looking into their back catalogue. Zero incentive my foot.