Ed. note: Over the weekend, thousands of music fans headed to Manchester, Tenn., for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival; while there, many of these attendees chose to spend their between-set downtime by either a) placing peyote under their eyelids or b) writing about how it was all, like,… More »
This week’s Chicago Reader has an in-depth story on the Chicago radio station Q101, and its decision to play the forthcoming White Stripes album, Icky Thump, in its entirety a couple of weeks back. It’s an interesting read for a lot of reasons–we find out that the album was transmitted via YouSendIt to Spike, the Q101 music director, who “doesn’t believe in file sharing,” among other things. But the biggest hook of the story to us is the sad-sack depiction of radio–the medium that, for the longest time, has been used to setting taste agendas but has now been reduced to supporting-player status because of its place in the industry and the wild-west nature of the Internet:
But a bigger question was left practically untouched: why would a major commercial radio station resort to playing pirated MP3s in the first place?
“It’s hard to be the leader in new music,” says Spike. “Say a record leaks and kids are passing it around on the Internet for two weeks. [Record labels] still want me to talk about the world premiere broadcast I’m gonna do. And you wonder why people listening to the radio don’t think of us as a source of new music anymore. They’re getting it before we are.”
The Sunset Boulevard branch of Tower Records may not have seen its last record sale: The White Stripes will be performing a very special show in West Hollywood, CA on June 20th. The band will play a live show for fans at a specially constructed “Icky Thump Records” store on Sunset Boulevard. More »
– A wealthy British loon is considering leaving his $13.8 million estate to the lead singer of the Fray. We don’t quite follow why, but please–whatever it takes to get that guy out of here. More »
We’ve received about 234 e-mails regarding the sorta-leak of the White Stripes’ Icky Thump that happened last night–yesterday, a Chicago DJ named Electra played the record in its entirety, and some enterprising soul with a really crummy signal decided to tape it off of his radio and turn it into MP3s. (We’ve listened to them, and trust us: The songs are good, but unless you really, really want to get vaguely nauseated by the bottom-of-the-barrel fidelity of the files, you’re best off passing on the Sendspace links.)
Anyway, word of Icky Thump‘s escape from pre-release embargoland reached Jack White–who was all the way in Spain–pretty quickly, and instead of sending the Web Sheriff after Electra, he rang up the station. She recounted the tale on her blog:
At 4pm today, Jack White called Q101’s main offices from Spain, where they’re touring, looking specifically for me, to yell at ME for leaking the album and, in part, being “messed up for the entire (music) business.” (Edit – I listened to the call again today, and I apologize for initially misquoting Jack.) I felt like I was going to throw up. Weirdest, most surreal conversation of my life.
Deaf Indie Elephants has another track from the White Stripes’ Icky Thump: The stomping “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told),” a savage put-down that happens to be one the album’s highlights (translation: it’s one of the few Thump thwacks to have actual hooks). Warner Bros. More »
The sing-along clip for “Icky Thump”–essentially a weird Michael Moore-Eli Roth fever dream–is over at Spinner. Amazingly, this has been up since midnight, and no one’s managed to make an easy-to-locate clip on YouTube. Oh, Internet! We’re so disappointed in you! More »
Web Vomit has an MP3 of “Icky Thump,” the first single from the White Stripes album of the same name. More »
According to NME, the new White Stripes album will be called Icky Thump. And while that’s hardly the worst title we’ve ever heard, it certainly begs the question: If this is the best they could come up with, what names did they reject? More »
Yesterday, Billboard.com reported that the White Stripes were ready to sign a “long-term, multi-million dollar deal” with Warner Bros., effectively ending the band members’ brief stints as free agents (they were most recently on V2 Records, which divested itself last month). So now that Jack and Meg White have a new home, what on-the-market acts can expect to be courted in the upcoming months? After the click-through, our 100% speculative guide for wannabe label managers.
