Squid ViciousBlog of Squid, Portland Photographer at www.FiveZeroThree.com

Radio is a funny business, last week I get in trouble from the record label for playing a leaked promo demo of the Green Day album that isn’t out until May. I had a 5 minute bootleg version that someone had posted on youtube.com. I’m pretty sure if you searched hard enough and knew all the tricks you could find it still. The leaked promo demo that sounded like it was from a tape isn’t going to hurt sales, it’s not going to hurt the web chatter about Green Day’s next album. If anything it will get an early buzz about the album and has people wanting more, now. All the message boards I had looked at had good words. Of course the odd man out had bad things to say but it’s just like getting a call at the radio station and the person saying you sound faggy! Really, faggy. It’s a bull crap response that isn’t thought out or even worth a response anything more then ” your mom didn’t think so”. When someone calls and gives some real comments I’m ok with that.

Today I was emailed the new single from the Silversun Pickups, it’s going for radio adds on tuesday 4 days from now. It was played on KROQ in LA at noon thirty as a world premiere. Of course they must expect me to play it, i have it and I will. I have been geeked about this album for a very long time and the album SWOON will hit the stores in April. About a week ago someone leaked the U2 album a week early on the internet and that got people in an uproar. To top it all off the winner of the best alternative album at this years Grammy’s let you the consumer choose the price you wanted to pay. You didn’t have to pay anything or you could of paid thousands. I paid $12 which is what I though it was worth and I had no problems with that. Radiohead went out on a limb and did something that was amazing. The sales figures came out for their album In Rainbows a few months back and it was interesting. They sold over 3 million total albums, downloads, special version, LP, Vinyl. Everything. They also entered the charts when the physical album was released at #1 in the UK and US. I think they had a good year and to top it off their tour in Japan sound over 1.2 million tickets.

I’m not saying that all bands should give the music away but if you want a buzz about the new album or tour or anything just look at how the newest Batman: Dark Knight did with all it’s viral marketing. In no way does anyone have to go to that extent or spend as much in marketing as them but they had fun and did it their way. If peole are looking for something to copy and follow after, they should try something from the last couple years and not the formula from the 90′s, before the internet took over the world.