Insound Launches "Save The Album" Campaign
Insound.com, the premier online retailer for independent music, has launched a campaign to "Save The Album." The campaign is designed to help celebrate a format that has endured recent threats at the hands of single track sales and subscription offers. Noted and respected indie artists The Decemberists, Bloc Party, The Mountain Goats, Devendra Banhart, Pretty Girls Make Graves, The Walkmen, and Lou Barlow have recorded short video pieces celebrating their favorite albums. The "mission" and the videos can be seen at www.savethealbum.com.
In support of the campaign, Insound.com, which had until now exclusively sold albums on CD and vinyl, will also be launching a new album-only, MP3-only digital store this week. All music will be available exclusively in the format in which it was designed to be released. Individual tracks will not be available for purchase. Additionally, the MP3 format will also allow consumers to easily move the music to any portable device they choose. "While the sale of individual tracks certainly makes sense technologically for pop music, it is fully not in the best interest of the independent music community. It hurts not only artists, but also labels, retailers, and distributors," said Matt Wishnow, President of Insound. "If I love Spoon, I love them for Series of Sneaks, Kill the Moonlight and Gimme Fiction and not for particular songs on those albums. We want to continue to nourish fans who feel this way about the album while allowing those fans to get their music in whatever format they prefer – CD, LP or MP3."
Jesse Woghin, co-owner of Chicago label Flameshovel (Make Believe, Maritime, Bound Stems), and a member of indie band Chin Up Chin Up, sees "Save The Album" as a natural extension of Insound's efforts to support independent music. "With the rise in popularity of single track downloading, the art-form of the album sadly seems to be getting lost along the way," Woghin explains. "Almost nothing pleases me more than hearing the sequencing of songs come together to form a perfect, cohesive whole. Leave it to the folks at Insound, though, to not only champion the format of the album, but figure out a way to re-envision it digitally with their 'Save the Album' campaign. The fact that I now can buy vinyl and download a full album instantly all in the same place truly makes Insound the perfect record store for the 21st century."
Insound launched in 1999 on the heels of the dot-com bust and right before the onset of the music-industry downturn. In spite of those adverse conditions, the company carved a special and necessary niche that enabled it to survive and thrive as a host of now-defunct competitors (CDNow, Music Boulevard, etc.) went under. The company, which began turning a profit in 2004, has been called "the go-to for all things indie rock" by NPR's All
Things Considered, and has been an instrumental part of the online retail success of a number of influential bands, from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
"Damn! Insound is my kind of company," says David Dickenson, owner of Seattle's Suicide Squeeze Records (Minus The Bear, Headphones, Modest Mouse, Elliott Smith). "True music fans working to provide true music fans with the best CDs, zines, limited edition vinyl, and more! Suicide Squeeze, for our part, is thrilled that Insound is now adding full-album digital sales to that impressive laundry list. We certainly look forward to many more years of working together."
back
| top |
