Comic - Colin Tedford http://colintedford.com

One marketing techinque that has recieved a lot of press lately in rock music blogs is selling recordings as one part of art objects. (I keep an eye on what career ideas are popular with musicians in other genres so I can share them here… maybe some of us “New Music” people can apply these ideas creatively.)

The “art object” recording idea isn’t new – it’s part of what made collecting LPs so interesting to some people. This was particularly true for the era of psychedelic rock with with unusual multi-media album covers (three examples include Velvet Underground & Nico‘s Peel Slowly And See banana, the Rolling Stone’s pants zipper for Sticky Fingers and hologram for Her Satanic Majesty’s Request). Other marketing gimmicks of the LP era included extra items like posters, comic books, stickers, and large photo prints. While these “free bonuses” have never completely disappeared, their packaging has changed. While these items used to fit in album sleeves, now they are relegated to expensive CD boxed sets.

A lot of press lately has been given to Radiohead’s new release King of Limbs. They released a digital version for download a few weeks ahead of the physical version, which is packaged with “Two clear 10 inch vinyl records in a purpose-built record sleeve. A compact disc. Many large sheets of artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradeable plastic to hold it all together.” (With their previous release, Radiohead pioneered the pay-what-you-want scheme for downloads.)

I also read a blog about the new Flaming Lips EP which being released with an odder product sold spearately. The singer, Wayne Coyne, explains:

“It’s a life-sized human skull completely made out of edible gummy bear stuff. It also has a gummy brain inside of it and, inside of that there’s a USB flash drive that has three new songs on it. It’s pretty outrageous.”

Can you think of any examples in the New Music world? Are there any?

I once went to an experimental electronic music concert (in someone’s living room) and the musicians sold CDRs which were each abstractly hand-painted. That’s all I can remember encountering…