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It's been all over the internet this week -- the new Shpongle album was leaked last Saturday and since then, things have gone just a tiny bit mad.
The usually-quiet Simon Posford came out with some fairly damning and quite troubling comments about the leak itself, and the wider implications. You can view Simon's responses at the Twisted forum here, but here are a few main takeaways:
Maybe twisted will still recoup, maybe not. All i know is that we are teetering on bankruptcy, and are seeking deals elsewhere.
How much do you think Twisted has in the bank account? Have a guess? More than $10,000? More than $20,000? Well it is actually less than $1,000.
All the artists on twisted are seeking deals with other labels now. We can’t pay a label manager, and we can’t pay the artists, always putting our hope in ‘just ONE more release’. “We’ll be ok if the DVD sells”....“Surely the Shpongle CD will sell, right?”
I’m outta here. Soon to be followed by Younger Brother and probably Twisted...
Twitter had a fair old buzz about this, as you might expect, including more than one comparison between Posford and Lily Allen's recent ill-fated public rant about piracy. Most were overwhelmingly supportive of a drive to purchase the album and "save Ferris Twisted", even if there does appear to be a tacit acknowledgement that most who are being encouraged to purchase have already downloaded.
But wait a second -- let's take a step back. What did we just see again?
First, an album got leaked. No real "big deal" in the scheme of things, everything gets leaked these days and there's even at least one company out there that makes a living out of tracking audio leaks. Across the broader music industry, a two-week headstart for the pirates over the retailers probably isn't such a bad thing. Indeed, I remember Ott telling me that 2003's Blumenkraft was leaked some six weeks before its release date.
Second, an artist got very open and very candid about their financial affairs and their relationship to web piracy online. Again, I guess this is nothing new - the Tweeted reference to Lily Allen is probably a little tongue-in-cheek, but I can see where it's coming from.
What is perhaps new is the way in which we are now inclined to consider reframing Shpongle, Twisted and Posford. We've all been aware of the tough times faced by trance labels, but personally I've been looking at all those shite fullon releases that come out, thinking "well, someone must be buying this" before tossing it in the sea and polluting the Great Barrier Reef and draw myself a vague and arbitrary conclusion that there if there's enough money to sustain the Shit, then there's enough to sustain the Quality.
Seeing our top-tier labels and artists struggling -- to the point that they are being publicly open about their affairs -- is humbling, not to mention worrying. Our reaction shouldn't be, "awww poor artist's gonna have to drive his Audi to the Job Centre," to echo a particularly snide online comment (that, okay, I will admit caused a slight wry smile to appear across my face). We could be looking at a world without Twisted Records-- and while this might not be something to cry about, it's the biggest smack around the face we've had so far about just how shit times are for the music industry. That's what our reaction should be: as though we've just been smacked round the face.
I expect that Twisted will be okay. This week's flurry of online publicity and people encouraging each other to buy the album (go on, there's a sport) may just lead to the spike in sales that the album probably deserves.
The events of the past week have gone a further step into reminding us just how much power we currently have as consumers. Just as with the recently-reviewed Nitz-Ho-Goa! CD, the Shpongle album can be delivered to your doostep for less than the price of an evening's beer and the "value" of this money when it reaches the vendor is, bizarrely, substantially higher than it is to us when it leaves our pockets.
My point is, I guess, that collectively we have the power to communicate. We collectively have the power to download. We collectively tweet, blog, facebook poke, SMS, anything and everything and right now, collectively, we have the power to perhaps save one of the most important electronic music record labels in history.
While this isn't the time to (again) rehash the "is P2P evil" debate I do believe there are additional lessons here; check back here soon for more.
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