This CD’s dying… can you sign it for me?

A lot of the interviews in the USA brought up the fact that we had been distributing our music for the last 4 years by posting free MP3s on our website. We were often at pains to point out that it was just because we could, it wasn’t what we were about – it was just a delivery system..

But what a delivery system!  We could record a track in the afternoon and in the evening we could post the track and people could hear it….. no record company A and R men, no radio station to impress, no TV show to get on…we make music and you hear it direct.. as I said when I wrote the lyrics to the song, “in the 21st century, the day the music was free”…….. and totally under our control.

So why in 2007 have we released a conventional CD of 12 Carbon/Silicon tracks into the world of the digital revolution that we have championed all this time? Isn’t this backwards when we’ve just seen Radiohead release “In Rainbows” as a paywhatyouwant download?

Well the game of Rock and Roll is changing all the time, none of us know what will happen next and we’re just doing what we can… but at this time it still feels right to hold a CD in my hand, a tangible product with a booklet and a cover…..See I believe all the variations, CD, free MP3 and iTunes downloads can coexist at the same time.. each is real.  We can do what we want because WE are the record company but releasing this CD is just adding another element because now they’re playing our CD on radio, we’re doing interviews and we’ll probably go on TV… because to the music business having a CD is the currency they recognize…..at least for the moment……

Now is it because I’m older and can remember walking through the school playground with the Alice Cooper vinyl gatefold sleeve album under my arm, like a badge that said “this is what I’m into, this is how cool I am” (alright but this WAS pre the “Schools Out” hit when AC was still perceived as weird rather than pantomime) or going to a first girlfriends house and flicking through her record collection thinking uh uh I can’t snog a girl who likes these bands, or is it because even when I was in Times Square last week,  I still went into Virgin Records to browse about and buy a couple of CDs that caught my eye.  Is it just me that still likes the buying experience?  And yes, we also order music from Amazon and from iTunes..but, but…..

There’s something –  something about having the CD in your hand….. even my 21 year old step-son still comes home with CDs or whatever.. even he, cool as fuck and with all the latest technology in the world at his fingertips is still’s not a download only child.

Is the CD dying out.. yes slowly.  What will we replace all those experiences with? …I expect smarter, younger, wilder, older madmen from the future or, well, who knows who, to tell me…. and it may mean that I would now need to flick through your latest playlist before we could go on a date…

In the revolution you grab what you can, try to survive in the world you find yourself in but we’re not revolutionaries, we just like making Rock and Roll music…
I’ll tell you what though, and let’s really think about this, after every gig we did, there was a queue (or line as you say in the USA) of fans holding CDs for me to sign, young and old..
Now I haven’t seen anyone asking me to sign their Laptop or iPod yet!