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Bands like the Hold Steady and Stars have managed to hold on to some cash that would have likely been lost to pre-release piracy by releasing their albums digitally before the product was ready for stores. But, not surprisingly, retailers would really appreciate it if bands and labels would knock it off. The National Association of Recording Merchandisers claimed in a statement yesterday that a unified street date helps spur on competition and lower prices for consumers. The release also stated that “over the past few months, there have been instances where release dates for physical and digital versions of albums did not coincide, creating unnecessary and unwelcome marketing obstacles, consumer confusion and, most importantly, missed sales opportunities.” Somewhere in the halls of Apple, Steve Jobs was seen silently chuckling over the unfortunate loss of “sales opportunities” for brick-and-mortar music retailers. [Billboard.biz]
Retailers Would Prefer These “Digital Pre-Releases” Come To An End
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Man, I hope I’m not the only one on this site that loves the new Hold Steady. I already feel out of touch from my fav music website after all the Girl Talk criticism last week. (I understand the hating, i just don’t agree.)
@drinkypuss: There are a couple of clunkers on it, I think, but for the most part it’s solid.
And I got it for $9.99 off iTunes. Would Best Buy have matched that price, National Association of Recording Merchandisers? I doubt it.
@El-Zilcho: i can almost guarantee that the new Hold Steady will sell for $9.99 or less at Best Buy when it comes out (on CD). that sale might only last a week, but still. they’ve done that with nearly every high profile “indie” release of the last couple years.
it’s a good record. i’m a big fan of the group, but this continuing story is starting to sound a little padded. like they wrote the lyrics using special Craig Finn magnetic poetry or something. and the sense of humor seems sorely lacking this time out. it’s all becoming a little self-important when every single song has the mythologized-female junkie christ figure.
In a development that will shock millions, I like the new Hold Steady album.
A weird story (I think?) about The Hold Steady: the “Web Sheriff” ([websheriff.com] – “Prevention Is Better Than Cure” ??) left a comment on a blog I write for saying how much they appreciate us not posting a leak of the album. So yeah, I was just really shocked by that. I’d never seen that happen to anyone else before or with any other CDs. I’ve seen blogs get take down notices and people get sued, but never this sort of, “Wink wink, nudge nudge, we’re watching you — oh, and care to use our look-alike-porn prevention services?”
Stuff like that sort of discourages me from buying from the band, though, because the whole Web Sheriff thing just struck me as really cheap. I’d heard a lot of good things about The Hold Steady from people I like and whose tastes I trust, and then that comes along and I’m like, “Er, no, sorry, that’s just fucking creepy.”