I thought this was pretty interesting/exciting news. The Raconteurs, who recently returned to the studio to record their second album, have decided to waste no time and will release their new album next week. Their sophomore album, Consolers of the Lonely, was just completed the first week of March and will now be released to stores nationwide March 25th. This is very unusual as most albums wait months between being completed and being released.
A release from the band stated that the rush to stores was “to get the album to the fan as soon as possible as we promised.” (link) The Jack White (The White Stripes) side project stormed onto the scene in 2006 with their album Broken Boy Soldier, which was one of The Blot’s favorite albums of the year. I’ve never been a huge fan of The White Stripes, but I can listen to Broken Boy Soldier and “Steady, As She Goes” over and over. While I haven’t heard any of the new album yet, I’m hoping it will be equally as good.
Along the same vein, Gnarls Barkley has decided to fight the leaks of their upcoming album The Odd Couple the only way they know how, by releasing it 3 weeks early. (link) After the album was leaked onto the internet the band acted swiftly and scrapped the album’s planned April 8th date. Instead they released the album on iTunes last Tuesday, March 18th and it will be “available at various online and physical music retailers across the” rest of this week. (link)
This is pretty great news for music lovers since it means to highly anticipated albums will be hitting stores within a week of each other. It seems like the only way to really fight the pirating of music is to be proactive and get out the new music to the public as soon as possible. Now we just have to hope that both of these new albums will live up to the hype of Gnarls Barkley’s and the Raconteurs’ debut albums.