Photo by Adrian Bischoff
When Radiohead released In Rainbows in 2007, the music industry thought it opened up a whole new world of possibilities: if one of the biggest rock bands on the planet’s big release was available at a pick-your-price rate, what would happen to the standard album cycle? Since then, we’ve seen Bandcamp spread that idea to the masses, taking 10-15% of the income depending on an artist’s success along the way, and stars like Beyoncé, D’Angelo and Kendrick Lamar released their albums with little to no warning. Overall, despite Muse’s claims to Rolling Stone, it’s been a while since the trad album release and promo cycle was the way for an artist to bring music to the masses.
The standard release cycle—something that’s planning is as structured as the NFL’s schedule— hardly worked for independent artists in the first place. Where fans see three song premieres and an album release followed by a tour, artists see a heap of expenses: a four-month publicity campaign, manufacturing product and merch, van and equipment rentals, and then finally the tour, where, if you are lucky, the money starts to come in rather than leave. The model is usually sustainable at the top level of indie rock and likely always will be, but for songwriters that sell far fewer albums, it’s a risk.
Enter David Bazan. The Pedro the Lion bandleader who went from leading Christian indie rock icon to off-the-grid Agnostic in the span of a few years has spent the last few years pioneering a sustainable, grassroots way of both touring and releasing music. Bazan had to postpone his club dates after Curse Your Branches, therein delaying he and his manager’s primary income. The solution? Work with a motto of "Work Hard. Be Nice. Hustle with Integrity" and book ticketed quasi-public shows in people’s living rooms. Richard Buckner, Kimya Dawson, and others have recently done tours in much the same way.
Bazan’s shows are intimate affairs, which works for him both for his own anti-capitalist purposes and for the sake of being more connected to his fanbase; his show in Brooklyn this week was at an old watch shop, 50-odd people crammed in attendance. Starting last year, he broke from the album cycle withBazan Monthly, Vol. 1 and is now continuing it with the aptly titled Bazan Monthly, Vol. 2, where subscribing fans receive a download and 7" vinyl of two songs from Bazan each month for five months. Spreading out the release enabled a more steady income; the first series didn’t have a set number of vinyl produced, opting instead to stop taking orders at a set date and whatever was sold would be the amount they manufactured. In Vol. 2’s case, there are only 1000 being made.
In both cases, Bazan isn’t truly gambling: with no excess copies of Vol. 1, he’s guaranteed a profit. While sales figures have not been released, it’s figurable it was around 1000 copies, enabling Vol. 2 for financial success. The idea may have been an adaptation from record labels like Third Man Records’ Vault service or DIY punk outfit Run For Cover Records’ 7" series, but it’s spreading and shifting as artists figure out what works for them.
Brooklyn indie rocker Kevin Devine is cleverly taking it a step further, doing a monthly 7" series split series called Devinyl Splits, expanding his fan base by working with artists he normally wouldn’t have a chance to like Perfect Pussy’s Meredith Graves, who released her first solo song through the series. It doubles as a way for fans to know Devine’s personal taste and see a broader picture. Kevin Devine may best be known to some as a face in Bad Books or an artist that’s played with Brand New several times, but the series shows how eclectic his music is without having to sacrifice a song to fit into an easily processed, Sufjan Stevens-like album narrative.
Take the song from his side of the Meredith Graves split, "Geißen"; it's about his friendship with former bandmate Mike Skinner who passed away last year. Forced onto an album, an artist would wonder: where it would it best be placed? Does its slow nature work as an album closer, the end of Side A, or somewhere else? Would the fact that it's one of his best songs make it something worth focusing on? Would focusing on it even though it's a downer brand him the wrong way? Is Skinner the main story for the album, or is it something else? As part of the 7" series, listeners can take it for what it is: a great, heartbreaking song about a lost friend and some personal moments they spent together on tour in Germany right next to Graves' mix of aggressive shoegaze and mellow acoustic melodies.
By releasing singles with artists he likes, Devine is able to re-contextualize his brand and genre; though he was known as an emo artist long before it was "revived", his music is perhaps most comparable to a punk Elliott Smith. This divide between an alternative brand and an indie actuality is something Devine’s talked at length about in interviews like his with Daniel Ralston on the Low Times Podcast, and the monthly vinyl gives him a chance to define himself on his own terms. It’s also something Bazan himself confronted nearly a decade ago when he retired the Pedro the Lion name. Is Bazan emo? Is he Christian? What is he?
Now Bazan is releasing music without marketing tags, without a publicist or a label pushing genre or narrative. (Devine currently uses the publicist for the series’ label, Bad Timing Records.) Bazan’s route ensures that if you hear about it, it’s either directly from the artist or from word of mouth. Maybe Devine will do another album in a year that will make bigger waves than 2013’s Bulldozer and Bubblegum; maybe Bazan will continue the synth progression found on his series to discover a new texture that wins the hearts of all critics. Regardless of what happens next, this much has to be said: both artists are breaking from the norm and finding systems that are manageable and hew fast to their idea of independence. More than any new standard, maybe that’s the future.