Jeff Stern

Info snacks that I find tasty. More thoughtful stuff is put on jeffstern.wordpress.com.

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Oct 5

“Inside every copy of Belle and Sebastian’s new album Write About Love is a unique code which you will enter here and then write 300 words about love, in any sense of the word. Why you love. Who you love. What you love. Where you love. Anything. Just write about love. Then Belle and Sebastian will pick a winner (henceforth referred to as “Lucky”) and Stuart Murdoch will fly out to Lucky’s hometown, hang out with Lucky for an afternoon, and write and record a song about Lucky which will then be released on an exclusive Belle and Sebastian 7″ later in 2011.”

Very cool. Just thinking about the project itself and what could result (at least two great books, compiling the very best and very worst of submissions) is fun.

This is the kind of stuff that excites music fans (and subtly plays with the power dynamics of fandom) and makes buying not only their new album but the future 7” an event.

The participatory element is a different way to interact not just with the artist, but with the music - I’m guessing contest entrants will listen to this album with extra attention.

And it’s a great entrant into the “canonical indie love albums” market (which let’s face it is growing thanks to the aughts being the decade that made hipsters a viable subculture) - 69 Love Songs may have competition.

Reblogged from:

This is the best album promotion contest I’ve ever seen.

Chris and I were just talking about this, and he’s right — it’d be funny if Morrissey did a similar type of contest in which he would end up writing a very mean-spirited song about the winner.