Tuesday, April 03, 2001

Prince debuts new single via Napster: This is awesome. Just in time for my parent's anniversary, too. ("Happy Anniversary! Your gift is on Napster.")

I've often wondered why more artists don't exploit Napster as a conduit to get their singles out into the public eye. It seems to me like it would be a good, cheap way to generate buzz about a forthcoming release. I mean, just imagine if you were able to download high-quality snippets of songs from a release you were anticipating (ie, Depeche Mode's Exciter). Wouldn't it be useful to the industry if Napster could produce charts showing how often your sample tracks were downloaded and give estimates on how quickly they propagated across the Napster network? Wouldn't that be a good gauge of how well-received an album will be? Wouldn't that be cheap promotion for the artists on your label which aren't going multi-platinum? Am I talking out of my buttocks here?