Smart Arses or Tight arses?

This week sees the much anticipated release of the new album by the Kaiser Chiefs called The Future is Medieval! ... Yawn!

But, I may have to hold back the “yawns” here as there’s a bit of a catch to it by our smart arse Indie popsters as it’s quite unique in the way that there has been no advertising or promotion in the run up to the release for the album at all. There’s also another interesting factor to this album

When you go on line (to the Kaiser’s own website, of course) to buy the album, the consumer is given the option to buy (rather bizarrely) ten songs from the choice of twenty for the princely sum of £7.50

Then, once you’ve created your ‘playlist’ the website then gives you the option to create your own album cover. It’s like a mix between Play School and an ipod

Bargain? I don’t think so

Although it does come across as being a bit of a smart arse idea from an ever changing industry, it also wreaks of being yet another gimmick from what sounds like another desperate attempt to boost sales and interest in a band struggling to come to terms with what to do with their money (they bought their own studio in case you were wondering)

But, the implications of the latest round of “my ideas is better than yours” in the ever competitive fields of Indie music could well be taking things to promote your new album just that little bit too far in my opinion

What next?

· Guess the title of the album?

· Guess the title of the song?

· Make up your own song/album title?

· Name the band?

· Name the band members?

But, I’m afraid the Kaisers have had their parades well and truly pissed on as a few weeks prior to the release of The Future is Medieval (which no one was supposed to know about) some naughty internet hacker leaked the album on line for the whole world to listen to and the Kaisers hopes of creating a totally unique way of releasing album were well and truly fucked! Bugger!

So, what happened next: That’s right, they did an interview and started kicking up a massive fuss about how people who leak albums are wrecking the music of music (bullshit) and, of course the real reason they are so pissed off is that they are losing their hard earned money from people obtaining the album for free courtesy of some geeky hacker called Derek who spends all day in his bedroom/loft conversion wanking off over series 6 of Doctor Who and of course finding ways to download albums that haven’t been released yet

On a person note, if I were in a very successful band like the Kaiser Chiefs, if I wanted to release a secret album, I’d certainly go the very extreme measures to make sure the likes of ‘Derek’ didn’t get his grubby little hands on it and invest a lot of my hard earned money to prevent that happening!

So, instead of thinking up such elaborate ways to release an album and thus guaranteeing applause and all-round pats on the back from your smart arse geeky mates, I’d suggest you look more into guaranteeing your future releases are NOT leaked on-line for the whole world to listen to and NOT to buy as frankly it’s not big and it’s not clever!

Either that or I predict a riot!

Mol