Harvey Danger - Little by Little...
Back in the late 90's a little Seattle-based band called Harvey Danger had a radio hit with their song "Flagpole Sitta". This was back when I occasionally was foolish enough to buy an album because of one good song on the radio, and I ended up really liking the band. After the flop of the second single from Where have all the Merrymakers Gone? and no luck with their second album, the band members went their separate ways.
In 2004, after an informal reunion, they decided to make another album together. And this time they decided to try something a little unusual:
In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as "illegal" file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little..., available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We're not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we're putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.Of course, you can also buy the physical CD from their website. I'm really liking the new album. Why not check it out, it's free after all:
Also, check the links section of their website for the band members' blogs and other goodness.
2 Comments:
So far so good. Lovely songcraft, hooks, production, performances. Damn you Steve, I'm hooked and I'm only on track 2...
Their first track, "Wine, Women & Song" is very nice on a lazy Saturday morning.
The second track, "Cream & Bastards Rise" starts with a distorted bass intro, something which always makes this bassist go "ooo, what's this gonna sound like?". Fortunately the rest of the track is extremely catchy and had me bobbin' my head while sipping my coffee.
Harvey Danger, I like you. You can come over to my place and hang out any time you want.
I want to like this record. More accurately, I want to like all this record, but I don't. Something really wrong happens starting with "War Buddies" that continues through "Diminishing Returns," leaving the record, which starts out so strong, to just sort of gamely fizzle out. I think this laggyness actually starts with "Happiness Rides White;" the subsequent tracks get weaker and weaker.
What's even more difficult to deal with is that there's some b-sides on the bonus disc that are clearly better songs than those on record proper.
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