We are ash and we are books, coffee-stained and overlooked

[venta]

Every so often I enthuse wildly at people to try and get them to listen to The Indelicates, who really are bloody marvellous. And they've got a new album out now. So really, you should pop along and have a look. The album is very varied in style, so I'd say listen to the lot, but if you want a couple of recommended tracks, I'd try Sympathy for the Devil (which isn't a cover) and Ill.

You can listen to the tracks I linked above in their "audio preview" section - full quality, full length preview. In fact, you can listen to all the tracks on the album. And, if you want to download the album, you can choose what to pay for it. Including nothing.

While many bands have been complaining bitterly about the state of the music industry, and making pathetic whimpering noises which could only be pacified with a parliamentary Act of very dubious nature, The Indelicates decided that the world was changing and they'd just have to change with it.

So they've set up their own label, and released their second album on an In Rainbows-a-like business model. Anyone who wants can put themselves on the label, and upload stuff to be made available to the public in the same way.

I downloaded the album the day it came out, and I paid for it because I'm a big fan of their music. It's very possible that I'm unrepresentative, and this venture of theirs is hopelessly ideological and ultimately doomed. However, I admire them for trying. They are people who Do Something instead of complaining that Something Must Be Done, and I think that's worth supporting.

Warning: I know there's a least one person on my friends list who will have issues with the album cover. It's called Songs for Swinging Lovers, and features the band's frontpersons swinging from a gallows. Not very realistically, but: approach with caution if such things bother you.

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

A lot of good work has been done in the indie videogames scene concerning alternative business models. The data so far suggest that asking for donations or pulling in-Rainbows style stunts doesn't work as well as just fixing a sensible price. (Assuming that by "work" we mean "generate income for the creators".)

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Well just downloaded it for free to have a listen to. Again if i like it i'll buy it. However i would not want to pay for an MP3 version as i'm a bit of a music geek, so may bug them for a higher quality download.

Interesting to note that a few other friends stuff is up there too !

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Wah, not on spotify! (yet?)

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Ooooh....Ill has an interesting start up....Can see the influences of a few bands there. *like it*

album cover

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Songs for Swinging Lovers - surely not the first of that title, which was long enough ago to be parodied by Songs for Swinging Sellers (as in Peter). OK, OK, so I'm older than Will (see above).