well, here's a different idea: bands that use napster bcos their label's been treating them like shite. Revenge of the Pumpkins Beware, record labels -- treat your bands better, or you'll get Napstered By Janelle Brown http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2000/09/14/pumpkins/index.html n the case of the Wallflowers' new album, "Breach," which is supposed to hit record stores Oct. 10, its appearance on Napster is supposedly a big boo-boo. Much like Madonna's "Music," the Wallflowers' CD appears to have been ripped and distributed on Napster by some enterprising insider (A journalist? An anonymous label-head looking for early-bird publicity?) who had an advance copy of the album. But the appearance of the Smashing Pumpkins album is no mistake whatsoever. The Smashing Pumpkins have reportedly been unhappy with their label, Virgin Records, for years. So they decided to give Virgin the big middle finger by releasing "Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music" -- their final album, ever -- for free online. According to press accounts based on (since-erased) posts on the smashingpumpkins.com bulletin board, a disgruntled Billy Corgan distributed a mere 25 vinyl copies of the album to un- named friends and fans and told them to distribute the songs far and wide. The result has been nothing short of astounding. The album will now apparently not be sold by Virgin at all, although the hordes of fans trading the MP3 version don't care, since they are already getting it for free. Radio stations are playing the album -- obtained via Napster -- and fans without MP3 players can even buy a burned CD from enterprising entrepreneurs on eBay. (Of course, if Virgin ends up slapping the Smashing Pumpkins with a lawsuit for infringing on Virgin's copyrights -- to the tune, say, of $25,000 per song -- Corgan and his band mates may soon be singing a different song. So far, Virgin has been mum on the issue.)
