The Hypertonics sent me a nice email today. Turns out that they’re making their entire discography available online. I have actually not yet listened to any songs…but I thought their heart was in the right place. Check out what they had to say.

Why Are You Giving Away All Your MP3s?

Here’s the idea: Every mp3 from every studio recording and decent live track is available on the website here.

Here’s the idea behind the idea: The old way of doing things is over. The 20th century is gone and the ways people interact have changed. People aren’t consumers, they’re people. Cities aren’t markets, they’re cities. You don’t “target certain age groups”. If somebody was targeting me, I would feel the need to defend myself. I wouldn’t buy their product, I’d shoot them in self-defense.

Sustanance shouldn’t be held for ransom. No more $7 bottles of water at concerts. No more $18.98 for a CD. The artificial scarcity and hostage crisis that capitalism creates is over. The monopolies that it seeks are impossible now.

This site is a vehicle for breaking that antagonism up. The artist and the listener aren’t on opposite sides of the baricade. They aren’t opponents or enemies. The battle between Getting As Much Money For A CD vs Paying As Little As Possible is bad for art, and it’s nonsense created so someone else can make money. How’s about the artists and the listeners collude and collaborate and shove off the middlemen all together?

So this is a channel to you. These songs are written and recorded, and now they’re here to be heard. They weren’t created to be hidden behind the castle walls of commerce. What’s the point of recording 30 songs and then holding them hidden away for ransom?

There are too many bands out there who have been scooped up by a major label, then left to die rotting on the vine. The listeners don’t trust anything that comes out of the same pipeline that brought us Hootie & The Blowfish and Britney Spears. So nobody takes a chance on a new band selling their CD for $18.98 and the label takes it out on the band and puts the music in limbo on a dusty shelf. No thanks.

They don’t charge money for Bibles and you don’t charge your friends to hang out with you. When something is that meaningful, you don’t want to be alone with it you want to share it. The circle of close friends here always get CD-Rs with the new demos, the live takes, the covers, the full catalog. Why not extend that circle of friends from 20 people to 1000 people? Hey friend, here’s the new stuff, dig it. Take it, we made for you in the first place. We didn’t make it just to claim possession of it, it’s everybody’s.

If you feel like contributing to the experiment, the option is available to you here. Otherwise, enjoy the music:

MP3s can be found in The Archive