Hi:
(A brief foreword: this is the only email you'll get from us. We have your email because you bought Sufjan Stevens' EP on Bandcamp. If you do like to hear more from us you can sign up for our email listhere. Which we wish you would.)
Thanks for supporting us and Sufjan with your purchase of his EP All Delighted People. Please keep reading but to cut to the chase, you can preorder Sufjan Stevens' new full-length, The Age of Adz, from Bandcamp for $8 right here:
(A brief foreword: this is the only email you'll get from us. We have your email because you bought Sufjan Stevens' EP on Bandcamp. If you do like to hear more from us you can sign up for our email listhere. Which we wish you would.)
Thanks for supporting us and Sufjan with your purchase of his EP All Delighted People. Please keep reading but to cut to the chase, you can preorder Sufjan Stevens' new full-length, The Age of Adz, from Bandcamp for $8 right here:
http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.
We love getting good music into your hands. We think it makes you happy, and that makes us happy. And that's why we're writing this email: to make everyone happy. It's admittedly a long email but we hope you'll stick with us for at least a little while because we want to explain something.
On October 12th we are proud to release Sufjan Stevens' first song-based full-length album in 5 years,The Age of Adz. We think it's one of the best things we've heard in a long time and we're hoping you'll buy it.
So. We have it on good authority that Amazon will be selling The Age of Adz for a very low price on release date, not unlike they did with Arcade Fire's recent (and really terrific) The Suburbs. We're not 100% sure Amazon will do this, but mostly sure.
We have mixed feelings about discounted pricing. Like we said, we love getting good music into the hands of good people, and when a price is low, more people buy. A low price will introduce a lot of people to Sufjan's music and to this wonderful album. For that, we're grateful.
But we also feel like the work that our artists produce is worth more than a cost of a latte. We value the skill, love, and time they've put into making their records. And we feel that our work too, in promotion and distribution, is also valuable and worthwhile.
That's why we personally feel that physical products like EPs should sell for around $7 and full-length CDs for around $10-12 We think digital EPs should sell for around $5 and full-length digital albums for something like $8.
So you might wonder why we'd "allow" Amazon to sell it for lower than that.
There are several reasons why, but mostly? It's because we believe in you. We trust you and in your ability to make your own choice. Here are some you might make if you decide to obtain the album:
We love getting good music into your hands. We think it makes you happy, and that makes us happy. And that's why we're writing this email: to make everyone happy. It's admittedly a long email but we hope you'll stick with us for at least a little while because we want to explain something.
On October 12th we are proud to release Sufjan Stevens' first song-based full-length album in 5 years,The Age of Adz. We think it's one of the best things we've heard in a long time and we're hoping you'll buy it.
So. We have it on good authority that Amazon will be selling The Age of Adz for a very low price on release date, not unlike they did with Arcade Fire's recent (and really terrific) The Suburbs. We're not 100% sure Amazon will do this, but mostly sure.
We have mixed feelings about discounted pricing. Like we said, we love getting good music into the hands of good people, and when a price is low, more people buy. A low price will introduce a lot of people to Sufjan's music and to this wonderful album. For that, we're grateful.
But we also feel like the work that our artists produce is worth more than a cost of a latte. We value the skill, love, and time they've put into making their records. And we feel that our work too, in promotion and distribution, is also valuable and worthwhile.
That's why we personally feel that physical products like EPs should sell for around $7 and full-length CDs for around $10-12 We think digital EPs should sell for around $5 and full-length digital albums for something like $8.
So you might wonder why we'd "allow" Amazon to sell it for lower than that.
There are several reasons why, but mostly? It's because we believe in you. We trust you and in your ability to make your own choice. Here are some you might make if you decide to obtain the album:
- You can preorder the physical CD and LP. We are currently taking preorders on both, selling them for $12+S&H and $20+S&H respectively. Those who preorder will get a digital download of the album 2 weeks early on September 28th. You can do that here:
https://www.scdistribution.com/sufjan/
- You can preorder the digital album via Bandcamp, starting right now. The cost of the preorder is $8. As a sign of thanks, those who preorder will also receive their download two weeks early on September 28th. (This offer ends September 27th at 11pm EST.) Do that here:
http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/album/the-age-of-adz
- You can mosey on down to your local independent record store and preorder or buy it there.
- You can wait for whatever pricing may or may not occur on the big broad Internet on release day.
- Finally, you could just download the album after it leaks without paying a dime from any number of sources on the internet. (We'd rather you not.)
So that's you.
A bit about us.
We are very much like Bandcamp. We are similarly sized companies (under 10 employees!). Both of us are dwarfed by companies doing the same thing but with seemingly limitless amounts of resources. Our dealings with Bandcamp have been honest and that's a rare find. And like us, they believe artists and musicians should get what's due them. Like us, they believe in the shiny ideal that someone can still possibly maybe perhaps surely make a decent living singing and writing and playing their best. We think that they also think that good music is worth something. This all while the internet swirls with bittorrents and rapidshares and full-album-mp3-blogs and heavily discounted pricing. So this is us, both out here on the raggedy edge.
And honestly, we like it here.
In fact, there are lots of us out there, doing what we do because we love to do it and hoping somebody pays us long enough to keep doing it a little while longer.
So we hope you'll be that somebody that keeps paying us a little while longer, in whatever way you think most appropriate.
Thanks for reading and being such a great bunch of people.
Love,
Asthmatic Kitty Records
A bit about us.
We are very much like Bandcamp. We are similarly sized companies (under 10 employees!). Both of us are dwarfed by companies doing the same thing but with seemingly limitless amounts of resources. Our dealings with Bandcamp have been honest and that's a rare find. And like us, they believe artists and musicians should get what's due them. Like us, they believe in the shiny ideal that someone can still possibly maybe perhaps surely make a decent living singing and writing and playing their best. We think that they also think that good music is worth something. This all while the internet swirls with bittorrents and rapidshares and full-album-mp3-blogs and heavily discounted pricing. So this is us, both out here on the raggedy edge.
And honestly, we like it here.
In fact, there are lots of us out there, doing what we do because we love to do it and hoping somebody pays us long enough to keep doing it a little while longer.
So we hope you'll be that somebody that keeps paying us a little while longer, in whatever way you think most appropriate.
Thanks for reading and being such a great bunch of people.
Love,
Asthmatic Kitty Records
I love this email so much. I have a lot of strong feelings about music and about buying whole albums. Listening to just one song is totally taking it out of context. There are songs deeper in the album that might have value that you would miss if you only listen to the "singles" of the album. Anyway. That's just kind of the beginning of that, and I don't even know how relevant it is to this post/that email. But this company is all about supporting buying whole albums. They are about supporting hardworking musicians and their art, and they are about the "art" part of art. Consequently, they believe that the physical CD and its artwork are worth owning. This is interesting to me, because lately I have been springing for the best amazon mp3 sales I can find. Then Asthmatic Kitty wrote this on their blog/website:
Do you break for tangible? Do you have a landline phone? Do you like writing letters - ones that do not require an "@" symbol or fit on paper, not 140 character limits? (We answered yes to all of the above.) Then you will be mightily interested to know that Sufjan Stevens' All Delighted People EP is now officially in the real world, on Compact Disc and LP. Buy the CD here $8+S&H and the LP - we're talking gatefold here people - for $20+S&Hhere. And of course you can travel on a real bike or car or bus or sidewalk to your local neighborhood record store. They have real shelves with which to stock real goods.
Why all this insistence on purchasing the actual CD? Is there something to the idea that something merely existing in the digital world, something essentially formless, carries not the same power as something physical? For some reason, this whole thing really struck a chord with me.
Then I bought Iron & Wine's new album, Kiss Each Other Clean. I was one hesitation away from buying the mp3 version so I could listen to it on the spot, but then the post from Asthmatic Kitty kind of came to me... I bought the physical edition.
I actually had to wait for my music to come. Almost a whole week.
So there was that. I had some misgivings about waiting. When I want music in the moment, and I get it, it usually hits the spot and I move on. I was worried that my appetite for Sam Beam's voice would be gone by the time my CD finally got to me.
I was wrong.
When I finally got the CD, opening it was one of the most savory experiences of my entire life. Have you seen the amazing artwork that Sam Beam did for the album? Go look at it. But there was something about physically tearing open the real-life plastic wrap around the real-life cardboard case. There was something much more intense about looking at the actual artwork in a physical form. I mean, seeing it online was great and I liked it, but it just didn't grab me the way it did in real-life. And, with the artwork in hand, I was more prone to actually look at and appreciate the work and thought that Sam Beam put into the album's art. I just give it a little digital glance with my digital eyes when it's on the computer. It's there, but it's really not...
Then I LOVED putting the CD into the CD player in my computer.
I will not get too gushing with this, as I think you get the point,
but I will say that the day after I got the CD and the inner booklet, I took it all to class with me. I sat during class and read the lyrics to the songs I had listened to a few times. I was somehow immersed in a brand new world I had never seen before with the physical lyrics and the awesome art and the melodies rumbling through my head. (It almost reminded me of getting into Genesis's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, where I looked at all the pictures and thought about the world that the band was trying to create. And I read all the lyrics and read the story behind the music. That was an amazing experience. This new Iron & Wine album was a similar experience.) I was getting way more out of my music than I would have if I had just bought the mp3s...which is so weird to me.
It has been a long time since I enjoyed an album this much. I don't think I will be tearing through as much music as I have been recently (I regret very much now that I don't have Destroyer's new album in a physical format...) I think I will do more research on the CDs I buy, and I will buy CDs with good substance to them. And since I will be paying a little more per album, I will buy less- thus helping me focus more on and enjoying what I actually have, instead of constantly looking for the next thing I am going to buy. I plan on slowly chewing on and digesting the works of the artists. The whole process of admiring and enjoying art is dependent on what you put into it. You spend more money, you get a little more enjoyment out of it. You take time looking at the art and you read and think about the lyrics, you get a little more enjoyment out of it.
I am now pro-CD. And pro-asthmatic cats.
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