Even before Arts & Crafts sent out promo copies of the new Stars album to the media, they made it available for download from their digital store. Indie-Pop Band Stars Want You To Steal Their New LP:
“I stole my friend Leslie Feist’s album off the Internet because I was too lazy to go down to the office and pick it up. It’s that easy to steal music off the Internet. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I also think there are people who love the band and genuinely want to support the band and have 10 bucks to spare. If you don’t give people the option at least to buy a record, then you can’t blame them for stealing it.”
This clearly makes a lot of sense. But will the strategy backfire? Coolfer expects “practically no press” on the album because of this.
I think we’ll have to wait until closer to the official September 25 release date of In Our Bedroom After the War to determine whether or not this affected their coverage in “long lead” print publications. There’s no question that by releasing the album digitally over two months before the CD release date, the album has already generated more buzz than it otherwise would have…
I mean, come on, would MTV covering Stars if not for the “turning the industry concepts of release date and album promotion on their ears” angle?