Rock Band Send Digital Downloading into Space

New Rock band Space Elevator have taken a rather unusual step regarding the official release of their self-titled debut album in April.

Deciding to buck the current industry trend, their debut album will not be available for download; fans will only be able to purchase the album on CD or Vinyl.

Their stand to get back to the era of physical rather than digital is backed by recent stats that point to the over saturation of technology driven systems, which the music industry relies on to drive volume has been demoralizing music lovers. Last year the US had a 32% increase in physical sales now at 6 million units. The UK in 2013 sold 780,000 vinyl albums,  the highest in 15 years since 1997 (BPI).

Lead Singer of Space Elevator, The Duchess explains

“We wrote and recorded the album with the ethos of classic 70’s and 80’s bands such as Queen, Genesis, Fleetwood Mac and even Kate Bush. Those artists would record albums to be listened to as exactly that, an album.”

The band argue that Vinyl offers the buyer the chance to “focus”, hear the songs, think about the songs, anticipate the next song and appreciate the whole album writing creative. This is all before we talk about the physical handling of the disc, the sleeve artwork, photos and liner notes….. ALL lost in the digital ether. Good creative music is not a sound bite they argue.

She continues..

“We want fans to listen to the whole record from beginning to end rather than cherry picking favourite tracks, which is so common with downloads these days. We thought about our artwork and we thought very hard about the pacing of the album, so we have a defined side one and side two, we occasionally segue from track to track and we also created some sound effect introductions.”

David Young, lead guitarist of Space Elevator further fuels the debate by commenting

“Vinyl made you listen to the album in its entirety not jump to the “single” you bought it for and we now have an entire generation that have often heard music through nothing better than iPod headphones.”

There has been of recent months a swell of disgruntled music lovers who believe that vinyl just feels closer to the music…more personal. You can’t just recline in a chair and enjoy a couple songs on mp3 the same way you feel like you can with vinyl, probably in part due to the manual nature of it. Music lovers (not tech lovers) just like touching something while listening, reading the liner notes, and being mindful about setting the needle and listening all the way through. Space Elevator are not the only band to feel that digital music has killed all of those things, but they are one of the few who are willing to do anything about it!