Album Leaks: Are Tuesday's Gone with the Wind?
TIME ran a story this morning on album leaks; the topic is interesting to me because it highlights a shift that happened within my lifetime. Prior to the web and the social epidemic of file-sharing, Tuesday was the holy grail of the record industry. New albums came about that day. Yet, in recent years, if I've heard about a new album and want to hear it, sometimes even months before the street date, I just search for it on YouTube and have always been able to gain access to the music. Does anyone truly wait to hear an album anymore? If not, what do we lose? The music is out there, people want to hear it; they find it and do.
From The Story: “In 1995, a Los Angeles radio station somehow snagged a copy of Michael Jackson's “Scream" and began playing it on air weeks before anyone was supposed to have heard the song. But back then, fans couldn't get their own leaked copies unless they recorded them off the radio. What once required patience and a little technical know-how now asks only for the click of a mouse button."
