Im not a fan of leaks. Primarily becuase i get the music early myself, and do not leak it.

Recently the Grizzly Bear album "Veckhimest" and the Yeah Yeah Yeah's "It's blitz" were leaked onto the internet. These were some of the most anticipated releases of the year, and now due to early leaks some will be tempted to download instead of pre order or purchase. Im not saying im not guilty of uploading a leak. Recently I grab the forbidden fruit of Merriweather Post Pavillion; however; upon its official released I purchase the Vinyl and CD copies of the album (I still contributed)

My point is that bands will likely suffer financially from these leaks. There is alot of money to be gained from the purchasing of a disc or download. Bands need to make money like anyone else. Grizzly Bear and Yeah Yeah Yeahs arent U2, Coldplay, or Greenday. They can't draw stadium crowds and likely dont want to. They rely on the purchase of there music and the endless small venue touring after the release.

It deeply saddens me that Vekhimest was leaked 3 MONTHS before its release. THATS CRAZY!!! and to top it all of it was sub par quality. I'm sure it's fantasic music, Its my most anticipated release probably EVER after the TWO WEEKS performance they gave on Letterman.

What are your opinions on leaks?

I'm not really a fan of leaks myself, because they are usually low quality when they first come out and I don't like listening to something that was taken by a tape recorder off the radio. If I do download the leak, I will usually also buy the album afterwards.

Downloading music in general, I have my own set of morals on that. I kind of feel the farther away from the original release, the less guilty I feel about downloading the album. Or if the original recording artist is dead. But for more modern things, I try to buy one or two of their albums to support them. Like for example, I bought 2 of Kanye's albums (808s and College Dropout) and then I didn't feel so bad about downloading Late Registration.

Understandable.

Some feel that artist should just immediately release there music the second its finshed and copyrighted. This would avoid leaks. Im not saying the pysical copy needs to be on shelves, but a good quality online purchase would be good.

As Ed Droste recently said. He knew it would leak, he's sad that it was such shit quality. He doesnt want people to judge the albums merits on a crappy transfer.

After hearing that I was persuaded not to download Veckhimest. It was straight from his mouth, and I respect that. Had it been good quality I may have been tempted. Its 3 months early so it would have been tough. Being a grizzly bear fan I vowed to take my parents and friends to their Toronto Concert at the pheonix, I also plan on obtaining the vinyl and Cd no matter what. Actually they are already pre ordered.

its just to bad, it had to be such low quality.

"They can't draw stadium crowds and likely dont want to." you sure they don't want to? oh well. off topic

as a non-downloader, i don't know much about leaks. if it's a completely finished album and high quality, then i can see it hurting the band financially, but if it's not then it might act as a teaser and get people even more excited about the official release. i'm thinking that it would probably be a bad thing most of the time. i have nothing against downloading music, but downloading it before the release date is quite different.

just a question for you kevin, why do you get a copy of an album on both vinyl and CD?

stupid leakers!


again, where do you get those downloads?

I think some people are so obsessively into following new music they can't help themselves but not wait even a month to hear a new anticipated release. If you go to the metacritic forums, people's best of the year lists tend to be only 50% already released material.

...which exactly is the reason that you did not leave a link in here??

I get a Cd copy because I like listning to music in my car, the Ipod hook up is a pain in the ass most of the time. Plus my Ipod is so full of stuff its hard to navigate whil driving.

I get the vinyl copy for home use. I like the warm sound it produces. It forces you to be more intimate with the music. You have to get up and flip it, you keep good quaity needles, you dust them off. Its an experience. Plus I love the large art workyou get. Sgt. Pepper was meant for vinyl

I don't want to transfer my CD collection to digital because I'm worried about data getting lost and then having to re-pay for everything I already paid for.

Bill, you don't have to throw away your CDs when you rip them. Just make sure you carefully label everything after. I'm going through the music library on my computer right now adding the years to everything.

Why can't you keep the cd's after transferring them?

Leaks suck. I'm not against downloading for the most part, but putting aside monetary reasons leaks take an experience/moment away from artists and fans. I really enjoy knowing that release is going to be available at a brick and mortar or online store on X date and I think that's something special that has been lost due to leaks and artists having to combat leaks by streaming albums in advance or releasing early.

Kevin, you are the RIAA's poster child!

RIAA?

RIAA. Google it.