Sweet release

Today is the 27th of October 2008, and by coincidence it is the release day for two different albums worth celebrating, not for their music (though one and a half are excellent) but for how they were have been released.

First of all, the picture you see above is of the lovingly crafted package that is Los Campesinos!' We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. It comes with:

• Two badges
• An amusing DVD documenting the band's international summer adventures (which sadly doesn't get as far as Lowlands)
• A foldout of that robot attacking drawing
• A booklet with both the lyrics to pore over and decipher at length, and a whole set of poems, drawings and ruminations on such things as the fruitfly issues around kitchen compost collection.
• Oh yeah, the actual CD, sounding rather punchier than certain unmastered versions *cough*

The only downside there is how to fit the thing in a CD rack. They haven't quite gone as far as the Laura Marling route of including a gig ticket, but then that one did have the unfortunate effect of making a probably still worthwhile package look a lot less like good value for money if you were in the wrong town or just couldn't make it.

Anyway, one of the best things about this is that this is no expensive special edition, but the standard and only version that you get for your 9.99 or so. Assuming that they're still making a decent profit on it, you wonder why more bands can't make a bit of an effort to turn release day back into an event again and to build up a unique identity for themselves beyond the music.

Album number two of today is Bloc Party's Intimacy, which comes in much more practical packaging although also doesn't say its name on the spine anywhere. I say today, but then I actually got it in the post on Saturday. Plus of course, I got the high quality download of it back in August, not long after they'd finished recording it. Again, all for a just about standard price that I was more than willing to pay upfront.

Far more so than the 'Radiohead model' which rather relies on being Radiohead to work, this has got to be the best way forward for a lot of bands with any kind of following. The people who want to get the album as early as possible, and the people who want to actually own a physical product are often one and the same. Why not build some loyalty by giving them both at no extra cost bar a bit of infrastructure? I'm guessing someone will be able to point out that the download+later physical release has been done before, but this is the first mainstream example that I can think of.

The initial non-inclusion and later free release of "Talons" to anyone who had already bought the album was an interesting extra which helped keep attention on the album after initial reactions had already passed, although probably was responsible for its dismal chart showing as much as the song's comparitive unremarkableness. A far cry from "Flux" last year being done the old fashioned way with the album re-released so that early adopters paid more, too.

It remains to be seen whether the album goes the same way as "Talons", although frustratingly as with Radiohead the chart system is not a sufficient tool to really determine it. I very much hope that it has worked and will inspire others, anyway.