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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Album / Business Today in Promo-CD Anti-Leaking Messages

Posted by Dave Segal on Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 11:33 AM

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The promo CD for the Tectonic label’s Tectonic Plates Vol. 2 features a computerized female voice intoning on every track, “Together we will beat piracy—mainly by me speaking over all the good bits.” And: "It is tiresome, I know. But the good news is, you can buy it and I won't be there on the final version." It’s one of the cleverest tactics yet in record companies’ ongoing battle to coax motherfuckers not to leak music to the internet. It subtly guilt trips you while giving you a “we’re all in this struggle together” feeling that lonely, poor music journalists rarely experience. And it’s funny.

By the way, Tectonic Plates Vol. 2—which features tracks by Martyn, Skream, Benga, 2562, Flying Lotus, Pinch, and others—is sounding damn good so far, five tracks in. I’m thinking it might be the Headz of dubstep comps. More later.

Comments (4) RSS

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This sounds a lot like Def Jux's highly hated "promo bot" voice overs. I still hear it in my nightmares.

Also, I like this release, but there are a few clunkers (what's up with the Flying Lotus track being so... boring?). Pinch does a great job on the retail version's second disc mixing much of the first disc and other tracks into a solid, fluid mix. I don't know if I'm ready to give this one 'Headz' status, but it definitely has some great cuts for those who may have missed the singles.

Posted by cosby

on June 23, 2009 at 11:57 AM

Why do critics continue to write about CDs they can't properly listen to?

Posted by levide on June 23, 2009 at 12:40 PM

De La Soul did this with a bunch of annoying sound effects on one of their promos back in the mid-90's.

Posted by Jason Josephes

on June 23, 2009 at 1:46 PM

You're the man, Dave, but I would never promote a record that had those sorts of audio interruptions on it for press. I am happy to have worked with bands/labels that would find it ludicrous to punish writers and editors for listening to the music early. Whenever I got one of those at Bandoppler, on the website albums got lower ratings connected to how much paranoid interference disrupted the musical flow. (I gave an emo band a 0.0, but they probably wouldn't have done that well anyways.)

Posted by Estey on June 23, 2009 at 5:03 PM