There may be a giant stick up my ass 'cause I'm all offended by God Forbid's free download for "War of Attrition" from the forthcoming Earthsblood. First, you have to register on the band's new ahem website, annoying promotion sledgehammer that it is. But fair enough. Then, like those dicklesses in L****n P**k, guitarist Doc Coyle unconvincingly states that the mp3 is a ahem holiday gift, rather than a commercial for their product:
Happy holidays metalheads! We in God Forbid thought it would be a great idea to give a Christmas present to fans in the form a free MP3 download. It's one of the most intense songs from Earthsblood, and sure to be a staple in the live set for years! We will probably do a video for the track at some point as well. Enjoy and please send us messages and commentary on what you think. We are psyched for everyone to hear this one!Christmas present? SHUT UP! Not bagging on you Doc cuz you totally rip and I always tell you as much despite the court order, but this is obviously just a promotion! In the same breath as "present," you pimp your live show and video and your new website! When I gave my parents that toaster on Thursday, I didn't explain that they should keep an eye out for other Black & Decker models and the big 2009 appliance trade show at the expo center this summer. Where are my fucking crabby pills?
6 comments:
When I saw that registration was required to download the song, I abandoned the idea but ended up crawling back a day or two later to hear the song after MetalSucks blabbed about it some more. I guess the marketing worked.
I can sympathize with them though, I'm sure the marketing information like the distribution of the fans that cared enough to sign up across the country. If I was in a band that was economically on the border between a bus band and a van band as I imagine God Forbid is to some degree, I'd definitely use that info in picking the dates for a national tour and promotion events.
Hey Anso,
This is Doc from GF. I guess it's kinda lame because I was googling our shit and found this site. Great blog name by the way. Anyway, I'm not offended by your critique, but I figured I would at least explain a bit.
As a hater of consumerism being shoved down my throat as well, I hear what you're saying but I think your discontent is a bit misdirected. First off, we've been out of the game for a while as far a new record is concerned. This will be our first album since 2005, and in that time the entire way albums are promoted has changed. We got all of our fans the old fashioned. Playing to live audiences and forcing people to enjoy us, haha. Many of the younger bands now seem to create entire fanbases by sitting at home working the net, and we're bit behind the ball on the whole deal. This new site is really cool. It gives us direct access to our fans. Let's us know who they are, where they are from, and we can get closer to the people like that chat room which is cool. I was talking to people from Saudi Arabia and South Africa. That shit is crazy. You can't do any of that stuff on myspace or facebook, and it's our site so we control it.
But the mp3 is still a gift. It was around Christmas and dudes got a brand new track 2 months before the albums comes out and all they had to do was sign up for the site. It is a great way to pump the new site more than pump the album. This is more for the diehards anyway. I mean we'll probably put the track up streaming in a week or so on our myspace, so if your not to hot o signing up, than just wait. It's not a big deal.
Dude we worked on this album for over a year, and we want people to hear it. There's a whole generation of young kids who've never even heard of us, and I want my band to last. I live for this shit man. I'm really proud of the work we did, so I'm going to work twice as hard to promote it and I won't apologize for that because no one will give you a thing in this world. You have to earn it. Eventually the album will leak and people will decide for themselves.
Either way, I ain't mad at ya. Keep up the blog and keep the dudes honest!
thanks for the comments, guys.
Doc, as a GF super-fan, I'm for any and all promotion; not against the website, not against the free download, shit I think the people of Earth should join hands to spell God Forbid across all seven continents. Not being sarcastic.
And sorry to repeat, but come on - as awesome as it is to get three tracks from Earthsblood now, it's not a present! It's a teaser, a preview, a hook. Nothing wrong with that, but a "present" would be you coming by to teach me that fucking harmony solo in Into The Wasteland. Ahem.
Thanks again for commenting and holy shit the compliment. See you guys on tour in 2009.
Hey Anso,
Thanks for the kind words. I guess we'll have to agreeably disagree about the intentions and content involved with our promotion. Yes, it's true that the ultimate goal is to promote the album, but Gum pretty much hit it on the head. The true promotion with this giveaway is the website itself. We want people to get involved so we can have better access to our fan base.
Also, I have to say it's still a gift. The other 2 tracks that we released were only in streaming form. Listeners had to go to our myspace to listen to the songs.(Empire of the Gun was only up for a few days by the way) Whether someone decides to buy our new album or download off the net for free, that have this free mp3 well in advance of the album's release or net leak in a relatively high quality format for free to burn to a disc, put on their itunes or ipod.....forever. It's theirs. They own it to do with it what they wish. Maybe your definition of gift differs from mine, but it is the transference of intellectual property without any monetary exchange. What would you call it?
Plus the fact is it that it only works as a an effective promotional tool if the material is strong. If based on hearing 1 or 2 songs, it convinces someone to purchase an album or come to a show. We're confident in our material, so we have no problem giving it away. I remember back in the day, no one gave singles away. I remember going to the store to buy a Fresh Prince "Summertime" single and the GNR "November Rain" single, so let's not lose our entire context here. Things have changed, and I'm sure at some point (unless drastic measures are taken to regulate the technology), music will be free or at least close to free. Until that juncture, we as artists have to utilize this leverage to help us have a sustainable career. Thanks again and happy new year.
Ha that's a good point -- you all could've just streamed "War of Attrition" but instead made it a free download.
This is a bad comparison, but remember way back when McDonald's first unveiled the McChicken Sandwich? They had dudes walking around the restaurants with little samples -- those bite-sized things were yours to keep, but the function of them was to promote their new shit. Again, not a fair comparison (fast food evil; GF pure awesome), but you can see the link.
It's good business. If I could distribute pieces of HooM! to all the Metal cats out there, holy shit I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Anyway, enough hair-splitting and nit-picking. We agree on the big stuff (God Forbid should play arenas, "Summertime" is a great song, etc). So for GF in 2009, as Borat says: GREAT SUCCESS!
the voice of reason:
is it possible that it can be both a gift AND a promotional tool??
((earth shatters))
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