With a few exceptions, most bands, regardless of genre or style, dream of having a platinum-accredited album. Even in this modern age of streaming and digital retail services, having your album go platinum still ranks among appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and destroying a hotel room as an essential rock star criterion.
Independent Canadian metal outfit Exes For Eyes are no different, and they have a unique plan for securing that much-coveted accreditation. They’ve come up with a novel concept for releasing their new record, Tongues Like Figure Eights, which involves charging a single dollar for the record.
According to the band, who’ve released a video statement about The Platinum Project, which readers can check out below, selling the album for one dollar will not only circumvent the need for a more prominent middle-man distribution system like iTunes, but will also hopefully deter any would-be pirates.
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“As completely independent artists with no label, no management, no agent and our own home studio, we asked ourselves ‘Why are we charging the same amount for an album’? What would happen if we cut out all the profit that’s normally used to pay those people and passed all the profit on to the listener in order to offer a competitively priced product?”
“Pretty much anyone can afford a dollar,” they continue, “and anyone considering pirating the album, which does happen even at our level, might reconsider if all they had to spend was a dollar to own it legitimately and actually support us, the artists.”
By charging a single dollar, as opposed to something within the usual $10 – $20 range, Exes For Eyes hope they will be able to more easily sell one million copies of their album. As they point out in their clip, Taylor Swift is currently the only artist to go platinum with an album this year.
The band are further hoping that the low price point for Tongues Like Figure Eights, which you can purchase here, will inspire a new business model for distributing music, while also donating a portion of their proceeds to the Unison Benevolent Fund charity.
