A Brilliant Publicity Stunt, An Incredibly Stupid Act

This has to be one of the silliest ploys I’ve ever heard. Apparently bummed out by the fact that “everyone just rips [albums] off from the internet,” death n’ roll act Blood Duster have decided not to let anyone hear their next album… sort of. From their official website:

“Taking the DIY punk ethos one step further, they have created their own ethos called, Do It Yourself, For Yourself or DIYFY, and will release their brand new album on limited edition vinyl but it’s pretty much unplayable. You can buy the record but it will have the album’s title KVLT scratched into the grooves rendering it useless.”

“BLOOD DUSTER have proven to you that they have made an album, they just don’t want you to hear it. This is a band taking total control of what is theirs.

“The band have even taken the extreme step of destroying the masters so there is no chance of it ever mysteriously turning up on the net, no super fan ever getting that one copy. Nothing. The album literally no longer exists.”

I don’t really have a problem with some dudes creating their art in a vacuum — it’s totally up to them if they wanna share it or not — I do think that creating that art in a vacuum but announcing that you’re doing so, while offering to sell listeners a deliberately fucked product, is, well, idiotic. Even if we pretend that this isn’t a bid to get some press and BD are being totally sincere, such action won’t really accomplish anything.

And this whole thing is rendered even dumber by the fact that Blood Duster clearly don’t actually believe this is a good idea, or the carrying out of some form of extreme idealism: their statement goes on to say that “They will release a 5 song download through all the usual channels to promote the release.” In other words, they won’t be making the album for themselves at all; as they themselves note in the statement, most people get their music digitally these days (legally or otherwise), so the digital release is all that actually matters. The album will be available pretty much worldwide for all time.

So obviously this is a terrific PR stunt, because, hey, I just wrote about it! I still can’t get behind such a moronic and blatantly disingenuous concept, though.

Thanks: Brendan