The Morning News

Listening • Engaging the Fans

One of the chief concerns of the digital age is the problem of getting people to pay for music. Of Montreal, the super-popular psychedelic funk freaks of our time, have devised a new marketing strategy to entice fans into buying digital downloads of their upcoming album, Skeletal Lamping: offering specially designed merchandise with every purchase. These visually arresting T-shirts, button sets, posters, wall clings, and tote bags (as well as traditional CDs and LPs) are designed by singer Kevin Barnes’s brother David and someone or something called the Gemini Tactic—and are likely to bring the band a bigger take than what they’d earn on illegal downloads (squat). The band’s press release states: “The goal is to expand the perception of music packaging beyond traditional flat, square artwork and to bring consumers back to record stores to get it.”

“Id Engager,” the first track they’ve made available from the new album, picks up musically where its predecessor, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, left off. Given our appreciation for that album, that’s good news to us. —Erik Bryan, Aug. 20, 2008

» Listen to “Id Engager” at Music for Kids Who Can’t Read Good

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