The Black Keys could be at the front line of a movement.
No, they are not the saviors of rock and roll. They are not stirring up a surge of blues rock duos, filthy-sounding guitars or jumpstarting a wave of Nickelback-dissing in the media. Those are well-established trends.
But the Black Keys could have demonstrated a way of intensifying album sales at a point in time when coughing up for music seems so last century.
In December, the Keys dropped their 7th album, “El Camino,” and landed it at No. Two on the Billboard sales chart. This could seem like a minor achievement for a band fresh off of two Grammy Awards in 2011 and recent appearances on “Saturday Night Live” and “The Colbert Report.” But let me refresh : It’s their 7th album, and netted their highest first-week sales.
Sure, the band has steadily grown in both renown and accessibility during the last decade. But together with the buzz, the Akron, Ohio pair chose not to make “El Camino” available upon release on the taking-the-Web-by-storm streaming services Spotify and Rhapsody.
Did making the album a little harder to enjoy at no charge make it more appealing on store shelves? It’s tough to think otherwise.
Services like Spotify could be a great discovery tool for music fans. I have used it to dig into unfamiliar bands for months and hope it continues to pick up steam. In December, Billboard reported Spotify had notched up more than 10,000,000 users. And now with full Facebook integration, more and more users will be digging into the library of more than 13,000,000 tracks.
Another supporter for this tactic is Billboard juggernaut Adele. “21″ isn’t available to streaming services, and not only was the best-selling album of 2011 but is in the middle of a Billboard-topping run not seen since 1998′s “Titanic” soundtrack. It has been No. One for 16 weeks, only the 20th album in history to reach that landmark.
Of course there are infinite other variables in play with the successfulness of “21,” though not giving listeners the ultra-convenient luxuriousness of streaming the album on Spotify likely is a factor.
It’s worth pointing out that although neither “El Camino” or “21″ are streamable, the largest singles from each record are accessible on Spotify. As maybe a technique to whet fans’ appetites and permit new listeners to take some notice, the Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” and Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” are out there, free of charge. Both songs still are ranked in the top 40 of Spotify’s most-played songs. If the singles are getting play, interest in the full works must be raised.
It may not benefit hot artists to hop out on streaming services because such access can get new music into the earbuds of the general public just as easily as radio play particularly as the amount of rock radio stations continues to diminsh. Except for mid- to top-tier acts, taking a page out of the Black Keys playbook might be a smart business decision.
The entire idea appears to be clear. In a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine, the Manager of Taylor Swift’s label compared it to the film industries’ approach with dramatic and rental releases. A film hits the Cineplex, then the DVD shop, Redbox and Netflix and at last, many go into steady satellite TV rotation.
Maybe this is the future of the industry. Like a big-budget blockbuster, an album could be supplied for buying in physical and digital forms on one date, and then 1 or 2 months later get more generally available thru streaming services.
An album hitting the Web could mirror a movie playing on cable. Maybe someday the Black Keys’ “El Camino” will be to Spotify what “The Shawshank Redemption” is to TNT as reported tagza.com.
