King Creosote is taking a step back from the fast moving digital age, and going all old school on us. He is no longer going to release anything in digital format and will instead only release on Vinyl.
Explaining the move, he told Glasgow’s Evening Times: “I have a bad feeling about the whole thing [ie digital music] – it’s something I don’t feel comfortable with. I am retiring from anything online, and digital music entirely. If you download 1000 songs, how can you value them? I think there is a malaise at the moment – people see music as some sort of service you get when you get broadband and everything around music has been devalued as a result”.
He continued: “We [Fence Records] are looking to sell fewer units, but to people who are willing to buy items of higher value. It is a case of admitting that if you do not support us, we are gone. The bands that have already done well, your Radioheads and the like, which have used the industry to get an audience, can give their music away all they like. That audience is big and will probably buy tickets to see them live. But I really despair for Fence acts, for new bands – how can they find the money to promote themselves?”
Full interview and story here. Its an interesting story. Will people really stop releasing music because of digital piracy?
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No More Workhorse 
That’s a shame in many ways, because it severely narrows the potential audience for King Creosote, and he really does deserve to reach a good size audience. I’m hoping that it doesn’t extend to the whole of the Fence stable – is brother has released one really excellent album as Pictish Trail, and Fence have an excellent CD club which I’ve joined a couple of times, where they get a band a month to record an album just for the club. Excellent idea.
I really agree with the principle though, digital formats have sort of killed the album – people download the song that they like, and not the whole album, which is a real shame, as often its the songs that you don’t immediately like that grow and become favourites. Surely that’s a part of the pleasure of music?
I suspect that for the majority of people this doesn’t make a great difference – your top 40 album listener is unlikely to change their habits much, but I wonder if digital could change the nature of the next generation of music geeks – the ease with which you can end up with a gigantic collection of music somehow detracts from the whole thing – there’s less commitment involved in exploring a band, and you’re much more likely to give something you’ve paid a tenner for a chance than something you downloaded for free.
Either way, I respect his stance, though I think it might do him more harm than good, sadly.
yeah, its doesn’t sound the best idea, and i think means the whole label will disappear soon enough. I don’t know anyone who still buys vinyl!
Everyone says that downloading is killing music, but i read the other week the amount of new albums being released every year, and its increasing hugely! i guess the ease of recording stuff means that everyone is doing it at home, rather than in fancy studios.
I think its not really killing musicians, but it is killing the music industry. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing! Still, if it means that some people you like stop recording music, as they see no future in it, then there’s the problem.
I guess we should support the people we like! Nothing new there.
It’s already having an effect on sound quality. I know too many people who don’t think twice before downloading illegally. But the flipside is that you can get your music out there with-out the blessing of a major record label, and some people will pay. I think that Ticketmaster are a bigger danger, the cut they take of tickets is ridiculous.
I think everyone hates ticketmaster alright. There’s talk at the moment that they’re trying to buy up Venues, so that they’ll be able to control both ends, making money off over priced drinks as well as their infamous ‘handling’ and ‘service’ charges!
There is also talk that artists are now mastering their music, so that it is best listened to on MP3, as its now the standard format. Amazing stuff really.
Yes. I find most of my music through lists on last.fm, test-listening on Spotify and then down-loading on Emusic. Not much major label action these days!
Spotify is the stuff of legends alright. You can listen to music on it, till you get bored with it, and never have to buy it at all!
Never got into last.fm. Not sure why, know lots of folks rave about it. Anyway, doesn’t leave much room for hearing king creosote, unless someone converts his lp’s to digital, and then they’ll be all over the net, which is probably what will happen!