These Album Leaks Are Getting Out Of Hand...

I hadn't intended to write a big, long article on this subject any time soon so I'll try and keep this pretty short...

Yesterday I posted up a link to LCD Soundsystem's homepage on which their new record This Is Happening is streaming. This stream was set up in response to the full album leaking on the Internet just days after the band released two more songs off the 9-track LP. They followed a similar pattern to Mgmt, who opted to stream their new record Congratulations for the two weeks that preceded its release due to a leak. The only difference being that LCD Soundsystem's third album wasn't due to land until May 17th in the UK, the 18th in their native USA and the 14th in Ireland - the leak occurring more than a full month before the intended release.

Less than an hour after I discovered this leak, I was doing my daily trawl of the net and decided to have a quick look at wikipedia and saw that another, massive release had been leaked. This story has been kept exceptionally quiet and, out of respect for the act, I will not name them in the hope that this leak can be contained and the act does not suffer. The article on wikipedia claimed that the album had been leaked on April 12th - again a full month before the album was due to hit stores.

In the two named acts and the one unnamed, I have covered three of the biggest releases due in the first half of this year - in my opinion there is only one major release that has yet to leak and there is still time! Casting a quick glance over the big releases earlier this year - Gorillaz Plastic Beach leaked days before its release, the vast majority of tracks from Yeasayer's Odd Blood were doing the rounds last December with the album only landing at the end of January while Broken Bells' self-titled debut was doing the rounds on various torrent sites last October - a full FOUR months before the album was due for release.

This is getting out of control. It's safe to say that the leaks are having a negative impact on the music industry - it goes without saying that there is an inevitable decrease in sales as a result (for example, following the leak of Congratulations, I listened to the stream on Mgmt's site a number of times before settling on the fact that I would not be buying it because it is pretty poor - had it not leaked, I would probably have been first in line to buy it the Friday morning that it hit my local HMV!) but you could make the claim that anyone willing to utilise these leaks are probably the same people who would download torrents, rapidshare files, etc. when the album was actually released anyway, right?

I don't have much to say on the subject other than the above - while it is always nice to get a little teaser of what is coming, you can't really beat the excitement of getting that new album you've been waiting for on the day it's meant to come out. Whether you get the CD, vinyl, MP3, whatever - it just takes away from the experience if you've already been listening for three months before doesn't it?