I stumbled across this in a post on Slashdot. Odd considering that is a technology site. Either way they were discussing the free download the band was giving of the album via bittorrent as a marketing means and as a means to rethink typical music industry results.

The band most famous for their mid-90’s hit “Flagpole Sitta”, which had an urgent grungy sound. Never did anything for me, but I figured with the free factor I would give it a shot. I am glad I did, as I have an album that I am pleasantly surprised by and am enjoying. It has an XTC sound and much more piano based sound then I expected.

The album consists of 10 tracks, all of which are strong with some that jump out to me. I particularly like “Cream and Bastards Rise”, “War Buddies” and “Diminishing Returns” but the whole is very good. The free download even includes complete electronic linear notes. Nice.

Here is the track listing:

1. Wine, Women, and Song - 3:15
2. Cream and Bastards Rise - 3:17
3. Moral Centralia - 4:27
4. Little Round Mirrors - 5:15
5. Happiness Writes White - 3:09
6. Incommunicado - 2:16
7. Cool James - 3:26
8. What You Live By - 3:04
9. War Buddies - 4:25
10. Diminishing Returns - 5:13

They are also promoting the fact that this is an experiment and may fail. The band released a press release in advance of the album spelling out their reasons for the downloads. They realize that after a free download, why would someone buy the disc. 2 good reasons - 1 - the CD is $11.99, and 2 - it comes with a bonus cd as well.

Harvey Danger circa 2005 - Photo by Ryan Schierling.

Interested? It’s free. You can download it from the official site, or get an even higher res download via bit torrent. The BT link are on the download page also.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 3rd, 2005 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Music.