Ever since Radiohead offered In Rainbows online for whatever price one was willing to pay, the race has been on to see who could come up with the next clever way to market a new album.
I think Kaiser Chiefs have found it in the creative strategy for their new album, The Future Is Medieval. On their official site, there is a tool that allows you to preview 20 potential tracks for the album, from which can select 10 songs in any order to form your own personalized version of The Future Is Medieval. From there, you get to design the album's cover art and then, using Paypal, you can purchase your customized album for about $12 (£7.50). Finally, your special version of the album--complete with custom artwork--is available for other people to buy (for those who presumably don't want to be bothered with the work of choosing and ordering the songs).
If you click on the banner below you can see (and buy) my custom version of the album. A full physical release is due to follow in a couple of weeks, although not all 20 tracks will appear on it. The cover above is the custom artwork I designed.
11 comments:
Wow! Great find! I think I'm going to do one of these myself!
By the way, you wouldn't mind if I put the link here, would you? ;)
Sure. I'd be curious to see what you come up with. And I doubt anyone is going to buy one when they can have more fun making their own.
Um... this is going to sound pretty stupid, but did you buy the album? I don't have PayPal or a credit card (I'm a teenager), so I have no means to buy the album.
However, if push comes to shove, I could just publish the track list here.
Yes, I bought it. It didn't occur to me that you'd have that problem. Not to sound old, but that must be a pain with so much shopping being digital now and requiring credit cards.
For the most part, though, I'm OK. I set up an iTunes account (like almost everyone else in the world), so I can still buy all of the songs there.
However, I have had a problem with some of the British hits ("Unorthodox", David Guetta remix of "Sweat").
If I remember, I'll come back on here and write the track list. I don't have the time right now, though.
such a clever way to market the album. problem is i have way too much trouble deciding which tracks i want and which i don't...
I was thinking about making a second one to get the other 10. It was hard to choose.
1. Problem Solved (2)
2. When All is Quiet (4)
3. Cousin in the Bronx
4. Heard It Break (7)
5. Out of Focus (5)
6. Fly on the Wall
7. Long Way from Celebrating
8. Back in December
9. Things Change (8)
10. Man on Mars (9)
In parentheses is where it falls on your album, if it's there!
P.S: I found "If You Will Have Me" quite funny, but it wasn't finished well enough, in my opinion.
... And then I heard it a third time, and realized it was more touching than I thought. However, it still doesn't have the musical power to carry the vocals.
If I did it again, I might choose "Coming Up for Air" as the final track instead. I like that you also chose "Out of Focus" as the fifth track--which is actually the album's fifth track. It's a great song and I like how its melody builds nicely throughout.
I'm really disappointed that "Problem Solved" wasn't on the final tracklist. I felt that it had the most potential to become popular after being released as a single.
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