I got an email from Derek earlier today about a retail release of Raising Up the Dead. Yes, I am the person who said [t]here will be no store release. One of our forum people spotted the possibility of this release just before Christmas, and the intrepid Wally Walker decided to ping @caedmonscall about the release later that day, and it was news to the band.
Raising Up the Dead was done as what INO calls a “tribal release”, where there are no plans for the label to be involved with the release. The band releases the record to the tribe, the loyal supporters who form the core of any band’s fanbase. With a tribal release, there are no plans for digital or physical release. That leads to:
there was a great response among the band’s remaining tribe. and the label took notice of this. so then to our surprise, INO decided to release the record digitally, based on the quality and initial momentum of the record. and that went unexpectedly well, even hitting number one at amazonmp3.com.
If you’re on Twitter and follow Derek and other band members, you remember the flutter in mid-November where RUtD got crazy traction. Based off 1) the initial strong response of us, the fans of the album, and 2) the Internet’s response to INO’s digital distribution of the album, we’re now seeing 3) the physical distribution of the album.
The band knows that this “causes one obvious problem: we sold the record initially with no IDEA something like this could be possible and are now in a position to confuse or anger some of the most important and supportive members of our community (by releasing a physical version of the record after representing in our online sale that those would be the only physical versions made).”
Now, I read the comments here about the pre-sale and on our forum discussion about the record and then pre-sale; in fact, I’m a critic of how the pre-sale tiering was done. I know that people are going to be upset about a retail release after we were told that these 1000 discs would be it. I fully expect those frustrations will again be felt in those places.
However, there’s another way to look at this. If you bought the physical release at the top tier of the pre-sale, you are a Caedmon’s Call fan. You may well have wanted that price to be lower—I did—thinking like a consumer that you could just get a bit more. But if you read that allusion and heard Danielle singing in your head, you’re in the tribe. If you are, I think you likely want what all good tribes want: to increase in number and carry their message through the land. [After all, Who Is Arcade Fire?!]
If you’re upset, let fly in the comments below or vent on our forum. We’re here to listen. But I do want everyone to think about how this is a success for the band to make a record that had no retail expectations but ended up being a commercial success, enough to now want to seek greater success through physical distribution.
Update, 17 Feb 2011: It looks like the retail release will come in a jewel case and have different, simpler packaging.
