OK, I've got a few comments and an idea.
To answer some of Underworld's questions during the broadcast:
1. I don't think the Dirties want everything for free. I would pay a few bucks for high quality downloads of unreleased tracks.
2. Book of Jam. I think some of us would pay for that too, thought not as many as for the music, I'm sure. I bought Skyscraper and Belly though, and I was looking forward to Book of Jam. Sounds like it's going to be a PDF release now, but I will buy the print version if that ever comes out.
3. Broadcasts? Yes, we like them! Keep them coming. I've gotten up at 3 AM for the last 2 broadcasts.
Now for my idea. I was musing about the comments during the broadcast about releasing music and paying for it and such, and thinking about the wealth of unreleased material there is (200+ songs from the past 4 years), and came up with this.
How about a Song of the Month club? There are a lot of ways to go about it, but the basic gist is to release one unreleased track per month. Maybe you could do it on like a subscription model. For example, members sign up for a subscription, and get charged something like £2 per month and each month they get a FLAC download of an unreleased track. And maybe the tracks are only available that month, or maybe they go into a Store archive where people can then go purchase them later. Maybe do an annual subscription option too for £20.
Another possible twist is to release the song for free at 128 Kbps MP3 in the Members section, but then make the FLAC's available only to the £2 subscribers.
Anyway, just some brainstorming I had about how to get some of those unreleased songs out there. I really want to hear some of the songs. My co-worker mentioned that Underworld songs are really great to listen to while riding the Shinkansen, and it made me wish that I could listen to "Bullet Train to Kyoto" while I'm riding from Tokyo to Kyoto next week. I guess I'll have to settle for listening to JAL to Tokyo on the flight over (which is on JAL
).