Ash announced they will stop making albums and concentrate on releasing singles on the internet.
By leaving this behind, we can record a track and release it the next day if we feel like it.
Stars have released their new album for sale in download stores, well before the physical release date.
Last Friday, July 6th, a final master was delivered to us.Traditional music business practice says we are to begin sending out copies of this album now. We give advance copies to print publications in hopes of securing features that coincide with our September date. We meet with radio stations in hopes of securing airplay. etc, etc.
Inevitably someone will leak the album.
Throughout this process, the most important people in this value chain, the fans, are given only two options - wait until September 25th to legally purchase the new album or choose from a variety of sources and download the album for free, at any time.
We hope you'll choose to support the band, and choose to pay for their album. However we don't think it's fair you should have to wait until September 25th to do so.
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As such, we are making the new Stars album available for legal download today, four days after it's completion. The CD and double vinyl versions of the album will still be released on our official release date, September 25th. We hope you will continue to support music retailers should a physical album in all it's packaged glory be your choice of format.
Where are the download stores with the communities that pass on news like this? I found out about it through a torrent site.