(Skip to the bottom and listen to the album while you read this.)
I’m very pleased with the new Vampire Weekend album.
I’ve been a huge fan since I first discovered their self-titled freshman effort. It’s catchy, fun and I can listen it over and over. If I had it on CD, I would probably have left it in the player for two weeks straight. Instead I can offer play count information: 56.
I’m not a music reviewer and lack the analytic capabilities to assess the album in a deep way. I do know about technology, though, so I’m looking at their digital release plan for the album.
I first came across “Horchata” via Pretty Much Amazing Blog in October (I RSS them, so I’d say I found it on the 5th or 6th). PMA offered a 96kbps download of the song (which is now a free download at vampireweekend.com).
Over the next two months, “Cousins” was released as a single and “White Sky” (my fave) showed up on their MySpace page.
They are now streaming their whole album on their website. It streams low-quality MP3s through a flash interface, simply play the whole album through or pick it by song. It’s possible to intercept the MP3s (via Download Helper or similar) but at 96K it’s not worth it. It’s a model I’m a big fan of, low quality is free, real deal is gonna cost you.
On top of that, I’m most impressed with is in the Facebook Connect and it’s really small and simple:
They just made their own little connect that calls it out. Otherwise it’s a regular status update (I’ve obscured the name and photo). It’s so minute, but it’s what made me stop to reflect on how I had come to be so exposed to an album before it even went onsale.
For your listening pleasure:
