Kaiser Chiefs unveiled their new record yesterday, custom-tailored to each buyer’s specification.
The Future Is Medieval exists purely in digital form on the UK band’s website, where fans can pick ten tracks from a possible twenty, design their own artwork and track-listing and then download the entire thing for £7.50 (about $11 AUD) to keep. It’s an awesome, interactive process whereby listeners can preview the songs and then ‘plug’ them into the machine which pumps out the record. Says singer Ricky Wilson, “We’re quite excited about this. Why not make an album yourself? We wanted to reward the fans for being our fans and thought this could be nice.”
In an added twist that could only have developed in the social media age, the band have created an added incentive for people to actually pay for these songs. Having compiled your album and customised the artwork, you can sell your version of it to other people visiting the website – and keep £1 for every one you sell. You even get the HTML code, allowing you to sell the album on your own website. Nifty, eh?
The band have created a real-life trailer to show how the process goes, which features an unwitting fan who came to a warehouse thinking he was in for a listening session before being told that he was ‘producing’ the new record:
Head over to Kaiser Chiefs Album H.Q. to start choosing your own lucky ten before flogging it to your mates.
