I listen to a lot of music.  I mean a lot.  Like I’m rarely not listening to music unless I’m on the phone or someone has made me turn it off.  Because of that I’m always looking for new music.  But while I’m always looking for new music, if I find something I like, typically I will buy the whole record just for symmetry’s sake.  I can’t really handle not having a whole record.

That being said, Death Cab For Cutie seems like they are giving the “one song at a time” release method.  We’ve all talked about that in the past.  With iTunes focussing more on singles and the mighty “release of the record’ numbers dwindling, that seems like a legitimate idea right?  I’ve even said it before on here I think.  Forget releasing a record and just throw out a couple songs a month or something.

Well Death Cab, is releasing the record  “Codes And Keys” sort of in a slow release process where you buy the whole record up front, almost like a pre-sale and then once a week you are notified that there is a new song available for download.  Today I got a song called “Underneath The Sycamore”.  It’s pretty good.  I listened to it once.  Then I went back to listening to Brett Dennen’s “Lover Boy”.  An entire record I bought a week or two ago.  Now, I applaud Death Cab for trying something new and accepting the fact that most people aren’t as OCD as me and don’t necessarily need to own an entire record.  What seems like the problem with this method, is that I have already forgotten about Death Cab for the day.  I heard the song once, and since there’s nothing else, I’m back to a record that I can hear as a whole.

“Underneath The Sycamore” was the fourth or fifth song that I’ve gotten from the record so far and to be honest, I can’t even tell you the names of the other songs.  My attention span isn’t long enough to commit to learning a record or finding my favorites until I have the whole thing and can process it as a whole.  I can’t even really say it’s a good record yet.  So, is this process working?

Now, again, I think it’s awesome that they are trying something new, but I think if it were up to me I’d say this process creates a more forgetful record than the release of something special.  Does that make sense?  When there is hype around a record release, even if most people buy just the singles, they know when it comes out.  With this process, I simply don’t pay attention that much, and I don’t even know when the real record comes out.  They did get my $12 though, so I guess something is working.

Anyone have any opinions about the way music is being released?  Do “Release Dates” matter anymore?