Marillion – Anoraknophobia (and Lucy)
“This is the 21st century, Can’t you get it through your head
This ain’t the way it was meant to be, Magic isn’t dead”
With the TSE Tour fund success, the creation of Racket Records and the band’s personal studio for recording, the email list campaign organized around the dot com album, as well as the end of their ties with Castle Records, the band were now at a point where their future was in their hands. Typically with record companies, bands are given an advance to cover their costs to write and record new material. It is not a gift. All money provided is then worked off against sales which often keep bands in the red unless the album is successful or the costs kept low enough to hopefully guarantee some return. The record companies also own the rights to the album and thus bands end up with a product they have created, but don’t own and may not even make money off of. It is a bit more complicated than this, but essentially that’s the wall they are up against. Marillion’s method for writing and recording tends to be a long process that involves many months, sometimes years to complete so they either ended up overbudget or pressured to get something done in a fixed timeframe…often both. With their studio in place it allowed them to cut some costs against renting studio time, and it also allowed them time for their creative process to unfold in a natural way.
March 27 2000 enter Lucy Jordache (who will hopefully QC and correct all the mistakes I’m sure to make here). Lucy worked at EMI and had previously worked for eight years in marketing at the ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi. She had been a fan of the band since Market Square Heroes was released and when the opportunity came to her to work on the Best Of Both Worlds double CD in 1997 she jumped at the chance. Impressing the band with the material she proposed for the album, searching for rarer tracks and demos to make the release more than just a basic best of, and something that would elevate it into a release more interesting for fans, she was ultimately offered a job as Media and Communications Manager with them. Within 6 months they fired both their promotor and their agent, and had Lucy start dealing directly with booking gigs as well.
Here is the announcement on the band’s website from March 15 2000 about Lucy’s then forthcoming start date with the band:
“We are pleased to announce the appointment of Lucy Jordache as our Marketing and Communications Manager. Lucy will be joining the Marillion team on 27 March, just 2 short weeks from now. As most of you will know, Lucy has spent the last 5 years working at EMI Records putting together, amongst other things, the Marillion remasters. Her brief will be principally to spread the gospel according to Los Marillos, drawing upon her past experience in the fields of advertising and music marketing in order to increase awareness and acceptance of the music and to work alongside the band on the business-aspects of Racket Records and Marillion. We get many emails from you suggesting new and interesting ideas to help promote Marillion, and raise our profile. We feel that many good ideas get passed by, largely due to record company schedules or to inaction at times when our plates are full. One of Lucy’s tasks will be to collect and organise these ideas, take action, follow up, and turn them into reality. She brings with her a wealth of knowledge gained during her stay at EMI records, and a passionate belief in the music.
Lucy already has her arms full of great ideas to begin work on immediately, but also wants to know what YOU think! Over the next few weeks while Lucy settles in (and paints her office purple, among other things!) you can contact her at lucy@marillion.com with your ideas to promote Marillion. Please understand, though, that she will not begin to answer these emails until March 27th when she joins us at the Racket Club.
We hope you’ll welcome her as the newest member in the Marillion family.
Anyone out there with contacts in the press or media should contact lucy@marillion.com right away!”
Lucy’s involvement would end up being the one final piece of the puzzle they needed to move forward as a cohesive, self contained unit. Over time she has taken on an insurmountable amount of responsibilities and has become the online voice of the band, interacting regularly with fans on social media, more so than any other band I can think of. Her contributions cannot be underestimated nor her importance in the band’s future. It began March 27 2000 and has continued to this day…whatever day you read this. Except now she has the title of Co-Manager along with the other 5 members of the band.
With their new found freedom and a new found employee, the idea of crowdfunding as a viable possible option became more and more realistic, and the band did something that had never been done before in music. They reached out to their growing database of approximately 30000 people and asked if anyone would be interested in buying their new album, before it had really been written, and knowing it could be six months before a final product was available.
Here is the actual post from their website from June 16 2000:
Dear all…
“This is an exciting time for us! We have been joined in the studio by producer Dave Meegan (who produced Brave and Afraid of Sunlight) and have begun recording the next Marillion album. We have three backing tracks down and it’s already sounding like it may well be our best album ever!
We find ourselves, for the first time, in the peculiar position where we are making a studio album without having yet signed a record deal. Deals are on the table as we speak: these deals consist of money being offered to us up front in return for our album, after which there is no guarantee that sufficient additional money will be spent on promotion. You know the sort of thing! You’ve seen it all before.
BUT we have decided that this might well be the time to change the way we do business.
Instead of signing a new record deal, we are seriously considering both selling the new album directly through the internet, and entering into a partnership with a MAJOR record company to distribute the album in the shops world-wide. By handling business ourselves, we’ll be in full control, and be able to promote the band properly by hiring more of the same high-calibre committed professionals who already work with us. We will also be able to give Lucy Jordache, our Marketing and Communications Director, a decent marketing budget to increase awareness of Marillion.
HOWEVER!
In order to make any of this possible we will need to finance our operation through the next six months of recording. This is where you come in. Before we make our final decision, we want to know what YOU think.
This is one of the biggest decisions we, as a band, have ever had to make, and your support could make a real (and permanent) change for the better. Please be honest with us – we ain’t taking your answers personally!
All the best… H, Steve, Mark, Pete, and birthday boy Ian”
11 days later on June 27 2000 they posted the following and the first ever crowdfunding of an album was born. Here is the post:
“There are very few bands on earth who can trust their fans to support them through thick and thin. We know of no other band or artist who could contemplate doing what we’re doing now together.
In June we decided to take the ultimate leap of faith in our fans. For the first time, Marillion seriously began to consider pre-selling next year’s album in order to raise the money normally provided by a record company. We didn’t consider this because we were desperate – we already have record deals on the table – we considered this because we thought that maybe, just maybe, you might have the faith in us to order, and pay for our next studio album over SIX MONTHS in advance!
The five of us realise it’s a lot to ask of even the most hard-core fans, so we sent an email to everyone on our database explaining our motives, and asking the simple question: Would you buy our next album now? Yes or No?
Believe it or not, we can say with much pride (and no little amazement) that 95% of the thousands who replied said YES. Some of you even said you would order TWO copies! This overwhelming response makes the whole thing viable and we have decided to stick out our necks, take you at your word, and change the way we do business.
By selling our album straight to you, we become completely free to take the decisions which affect the future of the band and we can also remove the middle-men who stand between you – our listeners – and us. For the first time we’ll OWN our own music. We’ve now signed an international distribution deal with EMI, so the next album will be on sale in the shops upon release in 2001, but by retaining ownership of the music, we’ll have freedom and power. [Read the Press Release…below]
We’re going to kick out as many of the cynics and the business-men as we can, and replace them with our own team of accomplished professionals who are driven as much by faith as we are. We believe this is the only honest road to success in the future.
We deliberately never made you any promises or rewards for ordering up-front when we emailed you, but we can now announce that anyone who bought our album within the first month shall see their name in print on the 2CD Special Edition of the album. We intend to thank you by name. We think it’s the least we could do!
Thank you for your support. We’re quite simply knocked-out..
h, Ian, Mark, Pete, Steve”
The press release read as follows:
Music Industry First as Marillion Fans Finance New Album
In what is believed to be an unprecedented venture which could revolutionize the music industry, Marillion fans have financed the making of the band’s latest album after an Internet whip-round raised over £100,000 – conclusive proof of the power of the Internet for artists and record companies alike.
Marillion, who have been writing and recording for almost 20 years, approached their database of over 30,000 fans via e-mail, as an alternative to taking up the deals they were being offered from established record companies. The response was overwhelmingly positive: within 3 weeks fans offered to pre-pay for the album, to the tune of 5% of total world-wide expected sales, providing enough money to cover the costs of making their 12th studio album. In doing so, a record company advance was rendered redundant and the band retained the rights to their new music.
This groundbreaking idea enabled the band to return to EMI Records who have agreed to license the album for a world-wide marketing and distribution deal. The album will be released in Spring 2001 through their Liberty label.
Any pre-orders will be manufactured and fulfilled by Marillion’s own Internet mail-order company, Racket Records, and shipped on the week of release. Fans pre ordering albums within an initial limited period will be thanked personally in the sleeve notes of the special first edition of the album. Marillion will cease manufacture and sale of the pre-ordered version upon the album release after which the album will be available only at retail.
Commenting on the initiative, Lucy Jordache, Marillion’s marketing manager said: “We were being offered deals from various record companies, but what the guys really wanted, was to have total control of their music, yet still be able to utilise the expertise and distribution facilities of a major record label. This could only be achieved if we obtained the capital to record an album from another source, and then took the finished product to a label. This is a real testament to the loyal support of Marillion’s fans, old and new. It also demonstrates the power of the Internet and what it has to offer both artists and the record industry as a whole. 95% of the band’s market still remains beyond the scope of the pre-order idea, so retailers should see no noticeable loss in potential sales. Indeed, an upturn is expected as Marillion return to their original EMI stable.”
EMI Liberty’s co-director Peter Duckworth added: “We were very impressed with this venture which we believe breaks new ground in the industry. We are all in a win, win situation, EMI are happy, retail is happy, the band are happy and the fans are extremely happy.”
Marillion are no strangers to harnessing the power of the Internet. They were one of the first groups in the UK to set up a web-site, (“http://www.marillion.com”), in the mid 90’s to communicate with and sell Marillion products to their fans – fans from as far and wide as Brazil to Japan and Australia to Iceland. They now have an active database of over 30,000 fans who visit their web-site on an average weekly basis.
UK fans objecting to a chance remark by Simon Mayo on Radio 1 last summer, brought the radio station’s computer system to a standstill when they emailed to complain and demanded he play a Marillion track. He subsequently interviewed keyboard-player Mark Kelly on air in an attempt to understand and appease the phenomenal passion of Marillion’s audience.
Back in ’97 American fans underwrote an entire US tour to the tune of $60,000, with donations following an internet campaign – an idea conceived and managed by the fans before any involvement by the band.
Lead singer, Steve “h” Hogarth adds: “It’s not just about the money – the Internet allows us to communicate directly to our fans world-wide in a way that’s spontaneous and instant. It’s a two-way communication process that’s changed everything for us – the fans feel like a world-wide family now. Faith moves mountains so watch out.”
Being the fanatical people that they are, an astounding 12500+ fans offered up their hard earned money to help support a band they loved. Within 3 weeks enough money (I believe in the vicinity of 150000 Pounds or 374 Billion Venezuelan Bolivar’s at current conversion rates) was raised to cover the costs that would be required for the band to write and record their 12th studio album. The band would retain the rights to their music while not having to resort to a record company to advance the funds. This one act of trust changed the course of the band’s career. It gave them freedom to write at their own pace, record what they wanted without any outside pressure and it fundamentally altered their relationships with fans. Marillion fans have always been a somewhat fanatical group of anoraks, but now they were personally involved in the continuance of the band. It isn’t a minor point and it worked both ways. The band felt an obligation to deliver and a sense of gratitude for the trust placed in them, while fans felt closer to the process, providing the means to help them continue in a viable way and thus ensuring a way forward for them. That relationship started much earlier, was test run with the TSE Tour Fund, and solidified with the pre-order campaign.
The band got to working on their new album all through 2000 and into the following year. They did only 11 live gigs during this time. Two shows on November 16 and 17 were at The Bass Museum in Burton on Tent in England, which saw a DVD release as A Piss Up In A Brewery and featured all sorts of rarely played songs including, for the first time, Cinderella Search, the b-side from the Fugazi era. Also debuted was a new song titled Number One, which would appear on the bonus disc for their new album and has only been performed live six times in the band’s history. The other nine shows were dubbed the Web Christmas Tour which hit select cities around Europe and the UK. No other new material was played.
The album was finally released on May 7 2001 again with Dave Meegan producing and Stuart Every assisting with mixing. It was titled Anoraknophobia which broken down literally means no fear of raincoats. Actually what it really referred to was the use of the British word Anorak, slang for someone with obsessive interests in niche subjects. Geeks, nerds and…Freaks…which is what Marillion fans proudly identify themselves as. Here is the actual press release for the album.
“STOP.
READ.
READ AGAIN.
THEN LISTEN . . .
“You’re all wrong about Marillion. Whatever you thought you knew about this record, forget it. Just put it on and listen to it.” Steve Hogarth
There aren’t many bands in this cynical, money driven world who have fans as appreciative as Marillion’s. In fact, it’s a struggle to think of any other band who could ask their fan-base to pre-order and pay for an album twelve months prior to its release. And then get 12,000 positive replies replete with cheques. Clearly, they know something that most of the rest of the world apparently doesn’t…
‘Anoraknophobia’ is the band’s twelfth studio album, and is a contemporary, subtle and extremely relevant collection of tracks, created by a band who have gone way past caring what the cynics believe. So if you’re expecting an album crammed with self-indulgent and inconsequential prog-rock, then you’re in for a disappointment.
A CHALLENGE
This is an important and contemporary album that is light years removed from anything the band have created in their past. It deserves to be reviewed in a manner that is both accurate and fair. So, our challenge to you is to firstly listen to the album. Then write a review without using any of the following words:
“Progressive rock”, “Genesis”, “Fish”, “heavy metal”, “dinosaurs”, “predictable”, “concept album”
Because if you do, we’ll know that you haven’t listened to it.
Your call…
Marillion – ‘Anoraknophobia’
1. Between You and Me
2. Quartz
3. Map of the World
4. When I Meet God
5. The Fruit Of The Wild Rose
6. Separated Out
7. This Is The 21st Century
8. If My Heart Were A Ball It Would Roll Uphill”
For all those who had contributed to the pre-order, the album was shipped out as a special two disc edition in a book like packaging with a 20 page insert that included the names of everyone who participated. I was one of those people. I think the font size is about 0.01-pt. In the liner notes the following was written by Steve Hogarth to us:
“The majority of copies of Anoraknophobia will be bought in record shops. This will be the standard CD on EMI Liberty (and Sanctuary in North America). What you have here is strictly for the anoraks – strictly for “family”.
This is a revolutionary record. When we first had the idea to throw the recording contracts in the bin and come straight to you to finance the recording of Anoraknophobia, to be honest, I had every faith that you would trust us with your money. However, I thought that our target of 10,000 presales was wildly optimistic. Privately we all crossed our fingers and hoped for 8000. After the very positive response in the first months, I think the band felt a certain unspoken moral pressure to make a CD worth of your faith and commitment. With Dave Meegan back in the producer’s chair we felt we had all the right ingredients in the bowl, although, as usual, none of us knew what kind of cake we were baking. Now it’s finished and the five of us are very happy with what you are about to hear.
This isn’t just a record – it’s your record. You bought it before we made it. If you were one of the first to pledge you faith, then your name is in this package, and your spirit is in this record. We’ve tried to make this CD as special as we can in every way. We’ve added a free bonus disc which contains video of some of the recording sessions, along with rough mixes of work in progress. Mark Kelly’s radical remix of “Between You and Me”, and an additional new song “Number One” which – if you have a computer – you can actually see being recorded.
We’d like to thank THE boom boom BOYS for editing and creating the video. I should also mention the fabulous Carl Glover who designed the special package.
Most of all, Marillion would like to thank you for giving us your money all those months ago. In the end, 12,674 of you bought this album before it existed. That is a serious hardcore family…and it’s growing.
This is the 21st century and everything is hype – but not this. This is about passion.
It’s good to be an anorak. We’re anoraks too.
See you on tour. (wear anything you like)
Love
H”
So was it any good? What did this new experiment sound like? A big prog masterpiece? A concept album? Eight variations of shnappy singles like Hooks In You? Nope it wasn’t anything like that. It was different, like most of their albums are. I really like this album a lot and in a very crowded, competitive field of great albums by the band I’d probably put it somewhere near the middle of the pack. Not a slight by any means…they just have a ridiculously large number of amazing records.
Alright let’s see what this new found freedom offered up creatively. First up is the only single released from the album Between You And Me which starts with a nice little piano intro before…ooohhh…yeah…I like this a LOT. It is immediately the sound of a band reinvigorated. Bold, confident and ballsy rock right out of the gate. “Today! I saw music in the sky. I drove towards it in my car”. Dude drive the fuck on…this is awesome. Everyone sounds excited and Steve’s voice is strong and powerful. It is a song that sounds like a great big fucking thank you to the fans from the band. It succeeds as a revved up tune, in ways that I feel songs like Rich and Deserve and A Legacy tried on the previous two albums, but failed to really catch a fire. This one totally eclipses every rocker the band had done since…maybe King from AOS. What a glorious beginning. It feels like the sound of freedom and the six and a half minutes fly by ending with a sweet raw guitar solo by Rothers.
Next up is a new sounding tune with a drum machine and a funky fucking bass line. Quartz is a nine minute slice of awesome that takes its time building with supreme confidence. It feels coy in the verses and then just whammo, opens up in the choruses. Beautiful subtle textures and sounds. Little flourishes all over the place from everyone, but with an inherently appealing melody. The song moves between verses and choruses taking it’s time to develop until it hits the bridge about half way through, which is abso-fucking-lutely incredible. A bridge is not a high place…it is, however, something that has the capability of elevating a song to another level, and this one is one of my all time favourites by any band…any song. It is lush and gorgeous sounding and it takes its time letting the listener sink into its trippiness before returning to the body of the song as it rages to a supremely satisfying ending. Remember when I mentioned how I didn’t like the end of Cliché from Fish’s first solo album cause the point where it stops…it should just end…well this song does something similar as it leads up to the line “One of these days it’s just gonna stop”. And it doesn’t…which it shouldn’t. The song plays out gently and well fuck me that is one incredible song. Pete Trewavas is the star of this one and it is one of his most iconic basslines.
Map of the World is up next and to me it takes songs like 80 Days and One Fine Day from This Strange Engine and it doubles down on them with a winning hand. It is a pretty straight forward mid tempo song but it is infectiously catchy and it succeeds because it doesn’t feel like it is trying too hard. Nothing particularly complicated but these are the songs that can define what makes an album really good or great. There’s a great line in the song “Runnin on empty runnin’ to stand sill no time for their own lives” which I think is citing the Jackson Brown and U2 songs. I could care less if anyone thinks this song is too simple. It’s why it is so good. Plus…you know…guitar solo…me likes guitar solos and Rothery is a fucking god of the sweet creative guitar solo. He could put a guitar solo overtop someone vomiting and it would make you pray they never felt better.
When I Meet God is one of two songs on this album that I feel are the backbone of it all. It is a slow, heart wrenching song that takes its time over the course of 9 plus minutes.. It is extremely melancholy and deals with the hangover of hope and faith. It is NOT about god or religion. It addresses the idea of being able to ask for justification for the horrors that plague humanity. The unfairness that life can offer. Either that or it is about Steve Rothery who is affectionately referred to by his reverential fans as God, though Hogarth refers to god as a female so either Rothers is hiding something or it isn’t about him. In all seriousness I don’t actually think Hogarth is saying God is a woman as much as he is trying to flip the paradigm to draw attention to the question of god’s existence and justification for the state of the world. This is a long song but it needs to be, and it succeeds in every way for not being rushed. Some songs NEED to be long and this is one of them. The verses are beautiful and the descending key choruses are desperately, painfully, mournfully executed. Then around six minutes in the song takes a turn. Dropping the tempo even more, which is something that has been done with phenomenal results on many songs. However, if anyone needs a lesson on how to execute this manoeuvre perfectly, look no further. The song almost feels like it is on the verge of shutting down altogether and then hits the line “The perfect mirror floating in space” with its simple flourish keyboard and it is amazing. Hubble with the ability to see across the universe with perfect clarity and beauty while down below nothing seems to make sense. The song fades out to the sound of radio broadcasts telling woeful news stories about painfully sad acts of chance and horror layered over each other. I absolutely fucking love this song (that’s for you Jeff Brown). The don’t play it enough but I know it is a long slow song…but still…great is great, and great music deserves to be heard, not kept in a box.
The second half of the album starts with The Fruit Of The Wild Rose which to me is coming from the same general place as Memory Of Water and Hope For The Future but it is much, much better. It is funky little seven minute number. Despite being my least favourite song on the album it is still better than most of my lesser favourite songs from the previous three albums. And while it is a song I don’t really desire to hear live…on the album I don’t feel the need to skip it either. If anything though, it suffers from being a bit longer than it needs and doesn’t stray far from it’s beginnings. It does have a pretty interesting middle section though, that breaks up the song. Even the funky extended ending is different yet gracefully managed with confidence. It kind of reminds me of something I’d hear on a Charlatans album. There is a great little line in it that harkens back to This Strange Engine’s “And the sun on the equator setting like an ember thrown to deep water. From crimson to black” when h sings “Swollen and crimson as the light fades and shortens” – different imagery but drawing from the same well. Actually I’m not sure it is my least favourite song on the album. It is actually REALLY hard do decide on this album. I might give this a nudge over Map Of The World for managing to be different without shitting the bed.
Next up is Separated Out which is the musical equivalent of Between You And Me, being another rocking tune executed perfectly and without feeling like it is trying to hard to rock. This song is fucking awesome live every time. Full on guitar power chords and a driving beat with amazing drumming by Mosley. It starts out with some spoken dialog taken from the 1932 film Freaks by Todd Browning talking about … freaks…which is actually related to what the song is about but seeing as Marillion fans self describe as the same its safe to say every fan considered the line directed at them. The song deals with feeling out of place with humanity. Which I guess Marillion fans are…so maybe the line works both ways. Apparently Meegan was playing with dialog from the movie without any knowledge of the relation to the band. He didn’t know the song or fan association and wanted to know if any Marillion songs referenced freaks. Fuck you Meegan…I hope you feel shame for that 
. This is probably one of the best executed rockers in the band’s entire catalog.
The second last song on the album is This Is the 21st Century which is my favourite on the album, and also the longest at 11 minutes. It is the emotional counterpoint to the song When I Meet God contemplating science as the force to question vs religion or god. Pragmatism to a fault. Both of these songs act as a place to focus the same general questions, but from opposite ends of the spectrum, and they anchor this album both lyrically and musically almost the same way the songs Afraid Of Sunrise and Afraid Of Sunlight anchor that album. Musically it doesn’t sound like anything that has come before with the exception of When I Meet God, but it is premonitory of songs like The Man From Planet Marzipan and Asylum Satellite #1 on Happiness Is The Road seven years later. Rothery has some seriously amazing solos on this exceptional song especially the extended outro that is a showpiece for his undeniable talent. If anyone is thinking this song goes on too long, just letting you know, it doesn’t.
Finally we end with the song If My Heart Were A Ball It Would Roll Uphill…which might be the longest song title in the band’s entire catalog. It is another scorching rocker that jigs and jolts with perfect precision and tension. It is definitely one of their most unhinged song and I freaking love it. Some people DO NOT like this song and for the life of me I can’t conceive of how that might even be possible. It is so searingly excellent. I love how it lurches and lumbers along like a wounded elephant. I mean that in a good way. I like elephants. Anyone who doesn’t like elephants is probably a sociopath. OK where was i? Elephants…no that’s not right…Right….Pete plays an amazing bassline throughout this song which is a bit hidden in the mix unfortunately. It also has a great guitar riff that repeats throughout like a musical earworm. It is one seriously funky song. Marillion funky but funky nonetheless. The other nice little nod to the band’s history, on the most forward looking album of the band’s to date, comes toward the end when the music beaks down and a snippet of Chelsea Monday can be heard saying “She was only dreaming”. It reminds me of Robert Plant’s insertion of some Zeppelin riffs onto the end of the song Tall Cool One from his Now And Zen album. It is a nod to the past on an album that points boldly toward the future. The song downshifts again as deftly effective as it did on When I Meet God, into an spoken word, almost freeform lyric, that is just…fucking…amazing. It is in my top 5 most loved song endings the band has ever done. The random lyric reminds me of something Bowie would have done on his Berlin albums and I’m convinced there is actually a lyric that was written and then jumbled up, to probably greater effect. An amazing end to a magnificent album.
Anoraknophobia was not eligible for charts due to the fact that pre-sales were via the band’s website and thus couldn’t be independently counted. On release it received mixed reviews both in the press and with fans. Personally I’ve loved the album from first listen and have watched over the years as many fans who didn’t like it initially, have come around to realizing what a fantastic, albeit different, album it is. I love the fact that it took the experimental directions of TSE, Radiation and Dot Com and expanded on them, creating a whole new musical language for the band that would infuse all of their albums moving forward. There are albums by Marillion which I like more with songs I like less, and there are albums of theirs I like less with songs I like more…but overall this is one of their most solid, consistent releases of the Hogarth era and it is a big bold confident statement of purpose moving forward, executed by a group who had absolutely mastered their craft and found their step again, though it took several albums to get here. Incidentally the character on the album cover is named Barry.
Another interesting fan centred initiative employed by the band had to do with the one single released from the album, Between You And Me/Map Of The World. Here is part of the press release for the single:
“”B.O.G.O.F.F!” say MARILLION.. (They’re at it again…)
‘Buy One Get One For Free’ scheme aims to break down barriers to airplay.
Yet again Marillion are banishing the standard music industry practices with the release of their new double A side single ‘Between You And Me/Map Of The World’. In another unprecedented project, fans buying the single from their popular website, www.marillion.com, are being given a free copy for each single bought. The fans are then sending the free copy (along with a letter and band biography provided by Marillion) to their local radio station to encourage its airplay. And with over 10,000 copies set to be posted to local radio stations world-wide, the band’s exposure is set to be massively enhanced.
Lead singer, Steve “h” Hogarth said, “Look around, listen around. Surely the music business has to change.. How do REAL bands compete with the Hear’Say/Britney Spears astronomical marketing/promotion spend? This experiment enables us to plough any profits straight into promotion AND to mobilise our legendary fans to raise a concerted voice to radio and, to a lesser extent, the media. On balance, we decided our own independent release is the way to go. It’s great that EMI have the vision to let us run with this. There’s been a lot of indifference to us at radio. Now we’re in a position to let everyone know we’re alive-and-well with the best weapons we have – our music and our fans – check it out…”.”
Finally there was contest the band arranged where people could buy the master tracks for the song Number One, which was the bonus track on the pre-order edition, and build their own versions. It isn’t a bad song but it is not of the calibre of the rest of the album. There were over 500 participants and the selected winners received a cash prize and inclusion on a double CD that was released in 2004 called Remixomatosis.
Between this, the BOGOFF single, and the pre-order campaign, that’s a whole lot of innovation for one album but it effectively kept the band alive at a time that they easily could have folded. Thank God for the Internet.
Recommended Listening: All of it – it’s a great album and I have a very difficult time eliminating songs on an album like this.
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