Barenaked Ladies On The Net
Press Release, Reprise Records, August 5th, 2000.New Album Campaign Features Groundbreaking Promotions.
One of the most consistently innovative, inventive and irreverent groups in modern music, the Barenaked Ladies will utilize the internet in a wide variety of new and original ways to promote Maroon, their eagerly-awaited new Reprise Records release. The follow-up to Stunt, the Canadian quartet's 1998 multi-platinum smash, Maroon features the debut single "Pinch Me," which will be featured in a number of internet configurations including a five-week Album Premier party beginning August 8th and ending September 12th, the official release date for Maroon.
The campaign offers internet streaming in a pop-up format of "Pinch Me" as well as five other key Maroon cuts and will be made available to all radio, retail and lifestyle websites. While "Pinch Me" can be heard throughout the Album Premier promotion, the additional tracks will be streamed for one week only. The schedule begins with "Too Little Too Late" on 8/8, with other tracks to follow. The Maroon Album Premier Party is only one of several unique ways in which the Barenaked Ladies will be bringing the music of Maroon to the internet. Among the others:
- Liquid Audio will offer "Pinch Me" to radio station websites, with the Barenaked Ladies performing a holiday radio concert for the station that logs the most downloads.
- Spinner.com will host a Barenaked Ladies radio channel on its website, featuring 125 of the group's favorite songs, dj'd by the band itself. The website will also offer a "Pinch Me" download.
- Alloy.com will sponsor a "Hang With Barenaked Ladies In NYC" contest, giving teen audiences an opportunity to hang out in New York City with the band and see various live Barenaked Ladies TV performances from 9/12 — 9/15. Twenty runners-up will receive autographed copies of Maroon and Alloy.com will feature the contest on both their popular Ezine and in their catalog. Additionally, the website has joined with Eastpak in promoting a flyaway contest offering winners airfare to a Barenaked Ladies concert as part of their back-to-school music promotion.
- Egreetings, in conjunction with the Barenaked Ladies, will develop digital greeting cards based around the new album with birthday, Halloween and other holiday messages from the band.
- Barenaked Ladies will also host a chat on AOL during the first week of the album's release as well as performing a live concert webcast on Time Warner's Entertaindom.com.
- Vocal advocates of internet copywrite protection, the Barenaked Ladies have developed their own, characteristically wry and witty, method of dealing with music piracy. The band has recorded their own "Trojan Horse" MP3's that include snippets of several Maroon tracks interrupted by voice-over riffs by the group, playing off the recent controversy surrounding Napster and other free music sites. The quartet has also recorded several answering machine messages that will be distributed as MP3's.
While the Barenaked Ladies' "virtual" presence will be very much in evidence over the internet in coming weeks, they will "actually" be appearing around the world, when they launch an extensive concert tour following the release of Maroon and running well into 2001. Dates will be announced shortly.
Contact: Jim Baltutis, Reprise Records, (818) 953-3375 or
mediahyper@aol.com