5.17.2010 | 8:00 am

Critical Backlash: On The Arcade Fire, “In Rainbows” & The Viral Mistake

Arcade Fire Postcard

The nerdier among us (which, OK, hand raised) may remember the months and years of waiting for The Dark Knight — and the viral campaign which helped fill the lonely hours at home, alone, laptop a-glow, wondering what Heath Ledger would look like as the Joker. It was worthwhile for a number of reasons: the gestation time of films is long enough for Octomom to pump out another litter; the mystery dovetailed perfectly with Batman’s own role as the world’s greatest detective, and its intelligence only (deservedly!) increased confidence in the prospects of the film itself.

Applying these same smoke screens to music, however, has been less effective. Before giving away promo MP3s, playing a number of late shows and generally promoting High Violet with gusto (and electronic billboards), The National launched HighViolet.com — a sloppy looking Web site that stayed blank for under 24 hours before giving up the secret and generally served as a gratuitous fluffing to the coterie of journalists and bloggers who were in the know for an afternoon. Joanna Newsom’s label, Drag City, kept dead quiet about Have One On Me even as fashion magazines reported the album’s completion, world tours were booked, and hours of new songs were debuted. Finally, the news arrived in the form of a weirdo comic strip and leaked details from foreign labels; the album then debuted to first week sales of 7,000, falling well short of comparable (and more traditionally marketed) NPR-friendly acts such as Andrew Bird. Meanwhile, YouTube secret-keepers IamamIwhoamI are still releasing clip after anonymous clip of increasingly less interesting music and visuals weeks after the thrill of guessing has passed.

On Saturday, Arcade Fire — a band that’s been quick to sic its representatives on the abundant rumors that’ve sprouted since the 2007 release of sophomore fumble Neon Bible — called a June 1 Amazon listing for an alleged new single, “Suburbs/Month of May,” incorrect, despite the fact that, per Pitchfork and Joel’s Arcade Fire Blog (authoritative sources, I know), the band’s site recently added and removed a banner titled “Arcade Fire presents ‘The Suburbs.’” And then responded by putting a hand-written postcard on their own Web site saying that a single would, er, ahem, be out in “a couple of weeks.” So… June 1? Something’s up, of course, and — spoiler! — that something is going to be a new album. Probably one about suburbs. It will have guitars and anthemic choruses and maybe an organ; it will sell several tens of thousands of copies in its first week; it will sound great on tour and less great about two weeks after it leaks.

In fairness, the Arcade Fire’s actions may just be the obsessed-over band’s struggles to keep their projects under wraps until they’re ready, but if Sandra Bullock can hide a damn baby for three months through Oscar season and a national tabloid maelstrom, you’d think dudes could handle their probable lead single. My point here should be obvious: indie rockers, please, enough bullshit. What are you going to surprise us with next? “Inaccurate” album tracklists? Post-Ben Folds fake leaks?! Lady Gaga’s cast-off cigarette sunglasses? To put on my Lefsetz hat for a minute: you’re musicians: the surprises should be in the music. If you want to get people excited, tell us you are making it and then let us hear it. After all, the most successful viral campaign yet did just that. Radiohead’s In Rainbows announcement was as plain as can be: We made a record. You can have it in a week. Pay what you want. With a paragraph, they earned worldwide headlines. Then again, as the Arcade Fire surely know, not every band can be Radiohead — and as Radiohead fans learned themselves just two years later, for every In Rainbows, there’s a Wall of Ice looming, infuriatingly, around the corner. It’s enough to make you sick.

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Critical Backlash is a column where I complain about things.

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  • extrania

    Well said, lad.

  • Greg aka gkla

    i confess this is a tangent, but i don't think it's fair to juxtapose the marketing of “Have One on Me” to “High Violet.” the 7,000 figure doesn't really reflect much about the marketing. the national is going to sell copies at Target; joanna is not.

    joanna newsom is an acquired taste. if someone hypes joanna newsom to you, your expectations are naturally going to be high. but she doesn't make a good first impression because her voice sounds like a squeaky clarinet. (less so on this record, but still,) you risk alienating people with too much hype. PLUS, “have one” is a three-disc album, so the price is high. even people who want it are going to initially resist paying the higher price, so the marketing campaign behind that record has a limited first-week payoff.

    however, “have one” is a good release for word-of-mouth. blogs are going to pick up on it, no matter how it's marketed. ditto to newspapers and NPR. that's because she's already a big name, so journalists care, even if there's no gigantic first-week advertising push. (there have, of course, been advertisements for the album.) plus the album is extraordinarily good, which helps.

    just because there were no electronic billboards touting “Have One” in the weeks before the release doesn't mean there was no marketing plan. 4,000-word New York Times Sunday Magazine profiles don't just magically happen the week after your album comes out unless someone makes them happen. do you think an electronic billboard on Fairfax of joanna newsom would have moved more $25 albums with 7-minute songs that sound like “Lisa Simpson with a harp?”

    the National, by contrast, seem like a safer bet when it comes to “traditional” record marketing because they sound like a “traditional” band. not only do they sound like Bruce Springsteen, et al., but they also sound like Arcade Fire and (yes) the Killers, etc., however better they may be than the latter band. these are the sorts of rock sounds that the masses are now accustomed to liking. (the Arcade Fire were played — repeatedly — during the Super Bowl. which newsom song would fit in during a timeout?)

    basically, Dude Rock albums are more likely to sell well when they're marketed like Dude Rock albums usually are. time will tell if the huge investment in the National actually pays off. but i think the decision not to market joanna like that probably was to joanna's ultimate benefit, and probably kept Drag City from throwing a bunch of money down a drain.

    i don't know what my point is, but i think this sums it up: “High Violet” is $9.99 at target, available in stores only. “Have One on Me” is not in Target stores.

  • http://www.rawkblog.net/ David Greenwald

    Greg, while I appreciate the passion, that's why I specifically compared Joanna to Andrew Bird, who has a presumably similar audience. The National is obviously a band with broader, more mainstream appeal and is going to sell 10 times as many albums. I was just citing her as an example of strange, possibly ineffective marketing — I'm sure it has as much to do with her personal reticence and the music itself as it does to do with the label, etc., but it still struck me as weird. It's not as if she's so different from Devendra or the Decemberists or bands that do more traditional press.

  • Greg aka gkla

    i hear ya bro. though “marketing” and “press” should not be thought of as interchangeable.

  • http://www.rawkblog.net/ David Greenwald

    True enough.

  • extrania

    Well said, lad.

  • Greg aka gkla

    i confess this is a tangent, but i don't think it's fair to juxtapose the marketing of “Have One on Me” to “High Violet.” the 7,000 figure doesn't really reflect much about the marketing. the national is going to sell copies at Target; joanna is not.

    joanna newsom is an acquired taste. if someone hypes joanna newsom to you, your expectations are naturally going to be high. but she doesn't make a good first impression because her voice sounds like a squeaky clarinet. (less so on this record, but still,) you risk alienating people with too much hype. PLUS, “have one” is a three-disc album, so the price is high. even people who want it are going to initially resist paying the higher price, so the marketing campaign behind that record has a limited first-week payoff.

    however, “have one” is a good release for word-of-mouth. blogs are going to pick up on it, no matter how it's marketed. ditto to newspapers and NPR. that's because she's already a big name, so journalists care, even if there's no gigantic first-week advertising push. (there have, of course, been advertisements for the album.) plus the album is extraordinarily good, which helps.

    just because there were no electronic billboards touting “Have One” in the weeks before the release doesn't mean there was no marketing plan. 4,000-word New York Times Sunday Magazine profiles don't just magically happen the week after your album comes out unless someone makes them happen. do you think an electronic billboard on Fairfax of joanna newsom would have moved more $25 albums with 7-minute songs that sound like “Lisa Simpson with a harp?”

    the National, by contrast, seem like a safer bet when it comes to “traditional” record marketing because they sound like a “traditional” band. not only do they sound like Bruce Springsteen, et al., but they also sound like Arcade Fire and (yes) the Killers, etc., however better they may be than the latter band. these are the sorts of rock sounds that the masses are now accustomed to liking. (the Arcade Fire were played — repeatedly — during the Super Bowl. which newsom song would fit in during a timeout?)

    basically, Dude Rock albums are more likely to sell well when they're marketed like Dude Rock albums usually are. time will tell if the huge investment in the National actually pays off. but i think the decision not to market joanna like that probably was to joanna's ultimate benefit, and probably kept Drag City from throwing a bunch of money down a drain.

    i don't know what my point is, but i think this sums it up: “High Violet” is $9.99 at target, available in stores only. “Have One on Me” is not in Target stores.

  • http://www.rawkblog.net/ David Greenwald

    Greg, while I appreciate the passion, that's why I specifically compared Joanna to Andrew Bird, who has a presumably similar audience. The National is obviously a band with broader, more mainstream appeal and is going to sell 10 times as many albums. I was just citing her as an example of strange, possibly ineffective marketing — I'm sure it has as much to do with her personal reticence and the music itself as it does to do with the label, etc., but it still struck me as weird. It's not as if she's so different from Devendra or the Decemberists or bands that do more traditional press.

  • Greg aka gkla

    i hear ya bro. though “marketing” and “press” should not be thought of as interchangeable.

  • http://www.rawkblog.net/ David Greenwald

    True enough.

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