817 words
on
Music
... or so they say. I do like The Raveonettes and said so here before. To be more precise – I like their music. Looking at their website was a bit strange, even months ago: It has a little extra frame at the top mentioning Sony Music
and Featured Artists
. Creepy, isn't it? After all, if I were interested in Sony Music
, I'd probably try sonymusic.com or run them through Google. That's when I first got the marketing creeps but, being the forgiving type that I am, I put it down to the band's lazyness, letting their agent/record-company/whocares sort out the website stuff. Not everyone is into this kind of thing. Fair enough.
At some stage I signed up for their newsletter, hoping to learn in a timely fashion about new records, gigs or just general gossip. I had done the same thing for Stereo Total earlier and I am quite happy with their rare, funny and even slightly informative newsletters. For the Raveonettes, however, the opposite holds. Just do a quick test. How much of
Von: Raveonettes UK
An: ssp-web@earthlingsoft.net
Betreff: Win Tix To A Private Raveonettes Album Launch Gig...
Hi guys,
We've got a bunch of treats for you this week, the brand new video for the Raveonettes new single 'That Great Love Sound' and an exclusive, invite-only album launch pardee, and you're invited!
do you need to read to know you're being annoyed by a marketing drone? Is it
invite-only
, is it
a bunch of treats
, even
Hi guys
? Possibly, but having a moronic
Win Tix
in the subject line and
Raveonettes UK
as the sender may have been clues as well. How comes marketing-talk is so hard to camouflage?
At this stage I must add that later in the same e-mail they can't stress enough that I can
Feel free to pass on the video links to everyone you know, post the link on your own sites/ other message boards and pass around to spread The Raveonettes word.
Notably, these are the same people who 'offered' me to download a new song from their web site a few weeks ago. Well, not exactly me because you needed some Windows program to play it and not exactly song but perhaps a 'file containing a restricted time-limited version of the song'. Haha, good joke.
Shouldn't any halfway decent band be able to come up with a few b-sides (remember they're not needed anymore in the days of the CD) or even 'regular' songs from a forthcoming CD to just give away to their fans on their website? That won't diminish sales for sure, but rather make everyone happy and less frustrated. Again, Stereo Total serve as a good example. While they don't offer a B-Side, they put a whole CD of rare songs along with a cover up on their site. Apparently it hasn't hurt them.
Oddly, the more the music peddlers want their goods to become expensive commodities, the more they write things like
Exclusive, Free UK Raveonettes Album Launch Gig...
... at least their didn't use all capital letters for
free
. I unsubscribed from their newsletter the second time now, let's see whether they ignore it again.
In the meantime
enjoy these
sizzling
and
loaded
uses of a dictionary:
Watch the sizzling tension between Sharin and Sune in the great new video for 'That Great Love Sound', [...]. Yeah! We love this video, literally to death, let us know what you think of it on the Raveonettes message board, check out the 'Contact' section[...]
Following the band's UK headline shows Sharin and Sune took time out to film the video clip for the single in London with British super-director Sophie Muller. Sophie's previous work includes classic videos for Coldplay, Bjork, Blur, Radiohead, Pink and Supergrass among others.
To celebrate the release of the band's debut album 'Chain Gang Of Love' on 25th August, the band are throwing an exclusive album launch party, and you're invited. We have 50 tickets to give away for the party click [...] for more details..
Remember you can still download 'That Great Love Sound' in full, for free [...] for a limited time only.
Check the official site for more details on the 'Chain Gang Of Love' album: http://www.theraveonettes.com which is released on August the 25th.
In the meantime this is what the press have been saying about the new material...
'Cinematic, loaded and decadent' - 4 stars - Q Magazine
'Drop-dead cool leather clad genius' - 5 stars - Attitude
'Chain Gang of Love is the coolest 'Best Of The 60's' compilation you've never heard' - Bang Magazine
So Sharin and Sune, if you're out there and if you're bright enough to not want to pay people to write and send out such crap about you – slay your marketing people, unplug your web server,
go out and play.
July 30, 2003, 22:00
Tagged as
music.
