3. Asking The Artist To Build The Record Themselves Kaiser Chiefs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkVvJQlW9Lc Not exactly indie's big innovators, the Kaiser Chiefs went with a potentially loopy idea to shake up the industry in 2011. The Leeds rockers' fifth record, 'The Future Is Medieval', consisted of twenty-three songs. Fans could visit the site and listen to thirty-second previews of these songs; after these previews, they could then order ten songs, however they wanted, and choose clip-art pictures to form an album cover. Fans could then share their versions of the album: every time a fan version was bought, that fan would earn a pound from the sale. The idea didn't work for several reasons. Firstly, the thirty-second previews didn't give fans long enough to decide on tracks; growers were left off of many albums, and there were too many songs to take in all at once. The fan versions of the record that were available to purchase also flopped, as anyone who wanted the album assembled their own version, and didn't want to pay for the privilege of owning two unofficial versions. The record was Nick Hodgson's last as the songwriter and drummer; 'The Future Is Medieval' might just have taken the band down a wrong turn at a pivotal point in their career. New album 'Education, Education, Education & War' follows this year.