This is how you deal with a fuck-up.
A UK i-Tunes pre-order page was offering two songs for free when you pre-ordered the forthcoming Bloodstone & Diamonds album. Only, it wasn’t supposed to. Someone is apparently being handed a P-45 a and a poor reference for this.
This means that not one, but two of the tracks from the album made it into the wild three weeks ahead of the single release date for “Now We Die”, the lead track from the album. Itself, along with the album version of “Killers & Kings” are now out there and available on torrent, YouTube… you name it.
So obviously Machine Head and Nuclear Blast initiated a huge take-down, launching legal powers left and right to demand that sites remove the songs and… oh, no. Wait. They didn’t.
Fuck that. This is Machine Head and Nuclear Blast. They rolled with it.
Sensibly, they’ve realised that trying to get something removed from the Internet is bloody impossible. Instead, they’re seeing this as free advertising – a chance to promote the album and engage more with you guys.
So instead of expecting a DCMA take-down notice or a vague threat from some trumped-up lawyer in an office if you share the tracks, they’re encouraging it. Get them out there.
Even better, make your own video for “Now We Die” and shove it on YouTube. If you’ve not got the tracks already, hunt them out (one’s below for you) or get them both as an immediate if you pre-order the album from pretty much anywhere as of now/soon.
To quote from Robb Flynn’s “The General’s Journals”:
And if you like it, we want you to SHARE IT! We’ve told the distributors specifically “do not take down fan YT channels with ‘Now We Die'”. Spread the word on your own YouTube channels, post it on your friends’ Facebook pages and feeds, make your own tribute pages, make your own lyric videos, make parody videos, post your own guitar videos of it, post your own singing videos.
We want to post YOUR videos of these songs too!!
Can’t say fairer than that.
On first listen, by the way, “Now We Die” is a track to be proud of. Here’s hoping the rest of the album matches up – Locust is a damn hard act to follow.
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