If you can't beat 'em, beat 'em to it

Way back in the ancient days of the mid '90's, the other music geeks that read this blog used to drive from the South to visit the music geek brothers that lived in DC, and we'd spend a music geek weekend of traveling around the WDCMA picking up CDs. For those of us from out of town, the main appeal of this trip was the ability to pick up the new British albums on import, because back in those ancient days of the tech-less 20th century, the British releases would be out in the UK as much as 10 months before they were out in the US.

It always seemed stupid to us, because those of us who were big fans would get the CDs on import, depriving the US record labels of a decent chunk of sales, simply because the US labels wanted to wait for a time when it would make marketing the album more friendly. Of course, getting the albums months before their US release date greatly appealed to the music snob in me, but I still could have done without spending $24 for a CD.

Here in the 21st century, the US record labels have wised up, and it's pretty rare that an established British band will get a US release date more than a day after the UK release date, showing that the slow minds in the music industry do occasionally get a hint.

But now there's a new phenomenon where the marketing-friendly release date is hurting the music industry: early mp3-leaking of entire albums. It's best example can be made with two albums: the new Belle & Sebastian album The Life Pursuit and Jenny Lewis' brilliant solo debut album Rabbit Fur Coat. Jenny Lewis' album isn't scheduled to be released until later this month, and the The Life Pursuit has a late February release date. The problem is, a large chunk of the potential buyers of these albums already have them thanks to both albums leaking and people exchanging the mp3s of the entire albums for free. I don't think it's a stretch to think that the mass majority of those people who have downloaded the albums won't bother to buy them when they get an official release date.

While I do understand wanting to release the album when it can get the most attention, I really think that this is something that can be easily rectified: labels should release the albums digitally as soon as they're finished. They can release them without fanfare to those big fans who want to buy the album, and who are likely to get impatient and go looking for the full album illegally. Let those people pay to download the album, and then give the album an official release on CD when the marketing moment is right.

Given the way the music industry works, they should figure this out around 2009.