Album Leaks -- Why?!

It's a cold day outside. You curl up in front of the TV, your computer, your video games, or a book, or whatever. and you listen to old music by your favourite band.

Why? Well, you are preparing for the release of their next album! You are SO excited. A whole bunch of new tunes to obsess over, to download as your ringtone, to wake up to in the morning. You've saved up more than enough cash to buy the record when it comes out a month from now. Hell, maybe you even pre-ordered it!

But what's this? You've just been informed that you can get this album really, really early, thanks to some random file-sharing website. You really love this band, and you want to support them, but you don't want to wait forever for that album either!

What do you do?

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Meet the horror that is the album leak, possibly the only thing I hate more than the bastards at Pitchfork Media. Basically, some hacker rips the music from the hands of the label or musician, and posts it around so all the punks who are too lazy to scrounge up fifteen bucks can have it. The artist(s) involve usually retaliate against album leaks by pushing the release dates forward... but does that really stop the little internet pirates of the world?

Exhibit A: Yeah Yeah Yeahs were scheduled to the release their much-awaited third album, It's Blitz!, on April 14th, 2009. The album was leaked to the net about a week ago. So, YYYs had no choice but to launch the digital album early, and push the physical release forward to March 31st.

Exhibit B: If you're a fan of Metric, you were probably no doubt poised to have a heart attack in anticipation for their fourth album, Fantasies, a record that's been in the making for more than two long years. It was ready to go for April 14th, 2009 (the same day as It's Blitz!). And then, just when people had a mere month to go before its launch, it gets leaked. Despite the fact that it could have been pre-ordered in five awesome packages (including a very enticing Limited Deluxe Edition, which is on its way to my door), people rushed to the file sharing sites to get their illegal copy, including the special tracks that were supposed to have been an incentive to buy the damn thing. Metric retaliated by posting the whole album for listen on their MySpace, which kind of defeats the purpose of releasing it.

Album leaks are wrong, and should be ignored. If you're a fan of a band, artist, label toy, whatever, that should be enough for you to contribute to their cause, no matter how much or how little they deserve it. All of the bands (indie or otherwise) who struggle to obtain a record label or launch an album on their own, have to watch as hundreds, even thousands download it off of mininova or wherever.

These people love making music, but they gotta make a living too, shocking though it may seem. Please, please support today's musicians and do not participate in album leaks!

Metric and Yeah Yeah Yeahs Links:

Metric's MySpace: http://myspace.com/metric
Yeah Yeah Yeah's MySpace: http://myspace.com/yeahyeahyeahs
Metric - Help I'm Alive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoK63Bk7pgw
Metric - Gimme Sympathy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLb6GGm2qFw
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lCL9EIhZ4&fmt=18