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Dangermouse gives away CD-R with his latest oeuvre, inciting fans to piracy
18 May 2009 | 12.29 Europe/London
Dangermouse, best known as the skinny one from Gnarls Barkley — the one who disnae sing — is having a little spat with his record company. In fact, it's such a spat that he's gone all hot and heavy on Internet piracy, suggesting to fans that they indulge in a little P2P filesharing rather than buy his new album.
After EMI shelved the release of Dark Night of the Soul, citing "legal battles", Dangermouse has bitten back. The album, a collaboration with film director David Lynch, and Sparklehorse, is coming out as a 100-page book of photos with a blank, recordable CD stuck in the back. The words "For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will." The subliminal message being: get thee to a torrent stream — fast.
With this month's Big Internet Ask being a Hamlet-esque, "To free or not to free, that is the question," Dangermouse's attitude is an interesting one. We already know how many forward-thinking artists see the web — Radiohead and Trent Reznor for example have used free album downloads as a marketing tool, with the NIN frontman using the carrots of superior audio quality and extra sleeve notes and artwork to get fans to cough up. And there's the wonderful fairy tale of Prince and the Webmongs, when he frees himself from the clutches of creativity-sapping Wicked Uncle Record Label and transforms himself into an online one-stop shop for new material, gig tickets courtesy of the Good Fairy Internet.
Dark Night of the Soul is already available as a free stream from NPR. Check it out here.
[Boing Boing via Gizmodo]
After EMI shelved the release of Dark Night of the Soul, citing "legal battles", Dangermouse has bitten back. The album, a collaboration with film director David Lynch, and Sparklehorse, is coming out as a 100-page book of photos with a blank, recordable CD stuck in the back. The words "For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will." The subliminal message being: get thee to a torrent stream — fast.
With this month's Big Internet Ask being a Hamlet-esque, "To free or not to free, that is the question," Dangermouse's attitude is an interesting one. We already know how many forward-thinking artists see the web — Radiohead and Trent Reznor for example have used free album downloads as a marketing tool, with the NIN frontman using the carrots of superior audio quality and extra sleeve notes and artwork to get fans to cough up. And there's the wonderful fairy tale of Prince and the Webmongs, when he frees himself from the clutches of creativity-sapping Wicked Uncle Record Label and transforms himself into an online one-stop shop for new material, gig tickets courtesy of the Good Fairy Internet.
Dark Night of the Soul is already available as a free stream from NPR. Check it out here.
[Boing Boing via Gizmodo]