the article Wrote:
The freedom from major-label constraints that BNL now enjoys was at first "nerve-racking," Page says. The feeling passed. For the new album, Barenaked Ladies Are Me (read: army), McBride and BNL have reinvented the release campaign, starting with the music itself. The band wrote 29 new songs, which will be packaged and sold in a variety of formats, including a CD, four different digital versions, a 14-track collection for Starbucks in Canada, and a second full-length disc, Barenaked Ladies Are Men, due early next year.
And that's just the beginning. Between ringtones, acoustic versions, and concert recordings, those 29 songs have been multiplied into more than 200 "assets" – song versions – that can be used individually or in conjunction with others to create a product. "Because the copyrights are in one place [in BNL's hands], we can be really creative," McBride says. Hardcore fans can buy 45 of those assets on a USB drive; others can download the special Sims versions (recorded in Simlish, no less).
I think this is going to backfire soon. I don't think people welcome the "many multiple versions of an album" thing the way they seem to think they do. I mean, how happy are we supposed to be that, in order to collect all the songs they recorded, we have to buy, say, 5 different versions of the album?
Looking at the recent Def Leppard album,
Yeah, which had three sets of different bonus tracks at three different stores, plus another bonus track at Itunes, that's ridiculous. And apparently Pete Yorn's album, which comes out tomorrow, is similar - a couple bonus tracks at Best Buy, an exclusive download at Circuit City, another exclusive track at FYE, etc. This is ridiculous. This trend needs to end quickly or even die-hard fans who willingly and happily buy things are going to stop responding and resort to piracy to get all this stuff. They're basically encouraging it with this type of sales tactic.
