Gang Of Four bassist Dave Allen has been writing on his blog regarding his current thinking of how his band should release all future new material. Seemingly inspired by Radiohead's 'pay what you want' promotion, Allen says that he thinks all of the following:
01. We need to make a cheap quick recording of no more than 6 songs. The days of spending forever in a studio are over.
02. It can't be called an album, that format is over - case in point - after downloading the Radiohead 'In Rainbows' album I found various remixes of songs from that album and so I deleted the originals as the new mixes were preferable to me. I then built my own running order. Goodbye to having an album formatted in advance.
03. As we write and record in rehearsal we should post the demos, as rough as they are, to our website and also to Amiestreet so that fans can download them. Comments would be offered and that way we could gauge response. Also word of mouth will get the message far and wide that these demos are available and that we are working on the new recordings - no PR required.
04. Understanding the data which will then help us understand our fans' behaviour.
05. It's imperative that we give away MP3s.
06. Enroll our most rabid fans to help us market and promote the band.
07. We must partner only with an indie label for any physical good that we release.
08. We must take meetings with people like Kevin Arnold at IODA and Shane Tobin at iMeem whose companies offer very distinct ways to reach music fans.
He then goes on to offer a diagram of how he sees the record label of the future working, which I'm not sure I completely follow, but it looks pretty. Anyway, you can read more about this at Allen's own website - http://www.pampelmoose.com - where you'll also find Allen is practicing what he preaches by making demos of new Gang Of Four songs - their first totally new material since 1995's 'Shrinkwrapped' - available as MP3s.