Keen to hear the new Portishead album before it’s released later this month? Haven’t half-inched it from the internet? Third will be streamed in its entirety at Last.fm from the 21st of April.
Those streams will be free, but downloads cost - however, Last.fm hope that allowing people to hear the record before it’s released will help put off many who otherwise would’ve downloaded it illegally.
“There is a certain group who are downloading in less than legal ways,” Last.fm’s Christian Ward told BBC Newsbeat. “If people can get hold of an album early on, it might not stop that kind of behaviour, but it does have more of an impact."
This will be the first the site has made an entire album available to the public pre-release, though REM did something similar with iLike last month.
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aka "pissing in the wind"
They could have handled this so much better
they're big enough to 'do a radiohead' and surprise people with the album, rather than sending out promos for anyone to rip months in advance.
in one sense
they have 'done a radiohead' because they're offering a special #40 box-set on their website. But it's only, like, the vinyl, a USB with the digital files, exclusive artwork, and not much more, so you don't get a lot for the roughly #30 or so extra it costs over just the CD/vinyl.
Ummm
Wasn't Kid A released on the internet for everyone to hear before it hit the shops? Or did I dream that?
That was 2001, dudes.
well, more like 2000 if we're talking kid a
i think it showed up on napster a month or so before the release. i don't think that would qualify as a "proper internet release"...
I seem
to remember an article on this site involving a certain member of Portishead slagging off Radiohead and the 'In Rainbows' download...
he
misspoke
.
I remember that Amnesiac was, or at least a few of the songs were available to stream before hand.
ARRG
The single is fucking breathtaking.