It'd be silly in almost every single plausable way to leak your own album, not just giving away your meal ticket, but also giving away future ability for food/living (label finding out and nulling the contract).

I can't wait for the official release and being able to listen to the entire project start to finish. 4 or so hours well spent!

Of all boards to take things literally... This is a Devin Townsend board right?

Now I'm not saying that people here won't go on to buy the album (this is the official Devin Townsend forum after all), rather I'm saying that downloading the album for free removes some of its value and ultimately impairs our ability to judge the work fairly and on its own merits. Being such avowed fans of Devin we at the very least owe it the man and to ourselves to give the music a fair chance as we can make it. At the very least it will offer Devin more accurate feedback and make any criticism (constructive or otherwise) or praise hold more water.

If that were the case, would we not appreciate the value of an album if it was given to us as a gift? Or if we found it on the street? What if we just went to a friends house and listened to theirs? In all those cases the listening experience is free. For someone with a lot of money, the monetary value may mean absolutely nothing to them.

For some people, the fact that they downloaded the album and heard it before the majority of the fans means much more to them than purchasing the album would. For some people, hearing the poorer version first is the much better experience for them than paying for the superior version. Some may value experiences over monetary purchases. Like I said before, different strokes.

Now I'm not saying that people here won't go on to buy the album (this is the official Devin Townsend forum after all), rather I'm saying that downloading the album for free removes some of its value and ultimately impairs our ability to judge the work fairly and on its own merits. Being such avowed fans of Devin we at the very least owe it the man and to ourselves to give the music a fair chance as we can make it. At the very least it will offer Devin more accurate feedback and make any criticism (constructive or otherwise) or praise hold more water.

If that were the case, would we not appreciate the value of an album if it was given to us as a gift? Or if we found it on the street? What if we just went to a friends house and listened to theirs? In all those cases the listening experience is free. For someone with a lot of money, the monetary value may mean absolutely nothing to them.

For some people, the fact that they downloaded the album and heard it before the majority of the fans means much more to them than purchasing the album would. For some people, hearing the poorer version first is the much better experience for them than paying for the superior version. Some may value experiences over monetary purchases. Like I said before, different strokes.

So true. I think that Devin's drastically different styles has shown that different strokes for different folks. Some people love SYL, some people love Infinity, etc, etc. To each their own.

[Octillus]

People don't think this is heavy? It's heavier on a thematic level than anything SYL ever did.

My god. There's nothing heavy about grunting for grunting's sake. But I guess I'm never going to be an unbiased source.

I find the lyrical styling to be very close to SYL and it deffinately builds into a heavy beast.
It's wacky and It'll grow on me like a mole I'm sure.

People don't think this is heavy? It's heavier on a thematic level than anything SYL ever did.

My god. There's nothing heavy about grunting for grunting's sake. But I guess I'm never going to be an unbiased source.

heavy aint the same to us older folks as it is to the youngsters of today. Back in my day Black Sabbath was still heavy and that was a couple decades before my musical growth started. We didn't have no moshpits we had what ye call dance hall floors. (brandishes walker)

Oooo, lots of new posts since I typed this (going back to the whole "do leaks hurt the artist" argument on page 77), oh well!

I'm sure somebody will disagree with me, but to be honest, I see basic chaos theory happening in Devin's favor with this album leaking so early (ie. this will create more fans and boost sales). Maybe this is totally obvious and I don't need to deconstruct the details (lol relevant pun...and this whole post might make me look like a huge bag of douche and an idiot haha...oh well), but for example, before it leaked, I had really no idea what the whole of the album was gonna be like, so it was difficult for me to blatantly promote it to friends because I wasn't sure which of my friends to promote it to. Now that I've heard it, I've already told a few of my friends about it, because I KNOW they're gonna dig it (face it, the album is awesome!). I can't promote something to people if I really don't know much about it. That whole idea will apply to anyone that gets the leak.

Of course, this whole album-spreading thing would have happened regardless of if the album leaked or not (if it didn't, the process would have begun June 20 instead of yesterday, obviously). It's just that now the ball of fan exposure is rolling close to a month and a half in advance, putting Devin and his growing fanbase ahead of itself. It's all chaos theory, really. The end result is that by June 20, Devin's fanbase is gonna be bigger than it woulda been without the leak, and him and the label are gonna have more sales. It may not be a huge increase, but I don't see how it leaking could make overall exposure & sales worse.

Or else, I could be totally wrong! Dev would know more about this than I would, for sure.

For some reason, I always imagine that Devin is in fact the one who leaks his own albums. (Sick, ironic joke in my head)
Only because he knows that it will be leaked eventually anyways, so why not be the one who controls the leak? He knows he'll get the money from the fans who will support and the ones who won't buy it but will download it will download it either when it is leaked or when it is released.

What is happening with leaks like this is that the labels have not adapted to the new technology. Before the internet, labels could mail out promo copies of albums and no have to worry about leaks. Where are they going to play it? On the radio? The label would come down on the station pretty damned fast, and they usually did in those situations. They could make duplicates and spread them around, but it still wouldn't compare to what can be done with the internet today.

If the labels don't want the promos on the internet, then they need to find a way to prevent it from happening. Sending an advanced copy of an album to anyone nowadays and not expecting it to be on the net within a few days is just naive. What choices do they have, though? They need to get the music out to the magazines, websites, and whoever else before the album's release to create a buzz. The labels either need to find a new way to get the music to these folks so they can't distribute it, or find ways to track down the ones leaking the stuff, and take actions against them. Or if they can't pinpoint the culprits, take action against everyone given advanced copies. However, the labels probably have done the math and have come the the conclusion that that whatever losses they suffer from illegal downloads probably are less than legal action against those responsible would be.

Now I'm not saying that people here won't go on to buy the album (this is the official Devin Townsend forum after all), rather I'm saying that downloading the album for free removes some of its value and ultimately impairs our ability to judge the work fairly and on its own merits. Being such avowed fans of Devin we at the very least owe it the man and to ourselves to give the music a fair chance as we can make it. At the very least it will offer Devin more accurate feedback and make any criticism (constructive or otherwise) or praise hold more water.

If that were the case, would we not appreciate the value of an album if it was given to us as a gift? Or if we found it on the street? What if we just went to a friends house and listened to theirs? In all those cases the listening experience is free. For someone with a lot of money, the monetary value may mean absolutely nothing to them.

For some people, the fact that they downloaded the album and heard it before the majority of the fans means much more to them than purchasing the album would. For some people, hearing the poorer version first is the much better experience for them than paying for the superior version. Some may value experiences over monetary purchases. Like I said before, different strokes.

I never said no value is wrought from something we get for free, rather that the experience is diminished simply because we have less invested in its acquisition.

I don't come along much, only when a new album comes out, basically. This album had the highest expectations of any ever for me, and I must say it completely lived up to them. I just came to say thanks, Dev. Absolutely the best musician in the world and a kick ass person as well.

This stuff is outstanding to hear, its a mindfuck that this guy can keep raising the bar no all fronts!

That's a good point. I had very high expectations for this musically, as the integration of the choir/orchestra and all the other guest musicians I thought would bring an interesting angle to Dev's music. In that realm, I thought Deconstruction easily lived up to the hype - much like Anneke's vocals in Addicted, these additional tools were implemented flawlessly (maybe an overstatement but how the hell you gonna measure art anyway). Dev uses them in creative ways throughout each song, and it's really amazing that he can micromanage so many intimate details from so many different people into a grand production, and be very successful at it. Seriously, even if you are not "into" the songs on your first listen, the sheer amount of effort and patience it must have took to combine so many disparate elements so seamlessly is really something we should all appreciate. Look at what a typical metal band does on an album; now look at what Devin can do.

Aside from the guests and the choir, what I did not expect and what was so intriguing about my first listen was the degree of variation within and between the songs. Take TMM, for example. I was thinking this would be something more like Color Your World with a mix of heavy and light sections and some crazy dramatic choir parts. When you consider how wide Dev's musical horizons already are in terms of the range of styles he has included on past records, the fact that he still is introducing new musical elements to his music is nothing short of amazing. I listen to a lot of weird shit, too; I'm constantly looking for new and different music, so not much really surprises me anymore. I was very pleased with Addicted. It stood the test of time, and it met the expectations of being a catchy, metal pop record. But it did not offer that extra element because we all knew Dev was capable of creating a great pop record. Deconstruction, on the other hand, shows us that Dev is still capable of finding new ways to present his art and to expand the musical boundaries of metal.

Deconstruction is not just a new SYL/Ziltoid with a choir; it is not just chaos; it is so much more and I cannot wait to take my next dive into this beautiful madness.

We have a 320kbps version to look forward to when we buy the album:)

If you're suggesting an actual CD plays at only 320kbps, then that is quite wrong. It's several times that if you had to compare, but vinyl is well beyond CD in that respect

Absolutely no reason to settle for anything less than an actual CD when it comes to artists that make albums without filler material, though I can't deny the convenience of the MP3 format (perhaps I'll conform and get an Ipod one day ).

We have a 320kbps version to look forward to when we buy the album:)

If you're suggesting an actual CD plays at only 320kbps, then that is quite wrong. It's several times that if you had to compare, but vinyl is well beyond CD in that respect

Absolutely no reason to settle for anything less than an actual CD when it comes to artists that make albums without filler material, though I can't deny the convenience of the MP3 format (perhaps I'll conform and get an Ipod one day ).

THIS!! Music with real value deserves to be bought with real value. I feel pathetic if I don't buy music that is legitimately good, and i just use the free copy from the internet that doesn't support the artist, doesn't include the intended art, etc etc. CDs aren't even that expensive, compare it to the production costs that artists and labels put into the albums!

Whoahhhh. Currently on Planet of the Apes and I'm very impressed. Juular was amazing and Stand was very good.

Definitely not as heavy as SYL so far, musically or thematically, in my opinion. But that might change. Also, it's not easy to discern the lyrics, so once I'm familiar with them, I'll probably get the album more.

Also, not a big fan of the lines about God on PotA. From the track titles, I expected the album's main theme to be about the animalistic, deterministic, physicalistic chaos of arbitrary human life. But that's a theme far removed from God, really, so perhaps I've incorrectly assessed Devin's philosophy from other albums. Oh well, not a big deal. Still greatly enjoying Deconstruction.