Niki N. Phaser

Irish alternative trio Ash announced a while ago that they are done with making albums. They’ve also made public plans to release 26 singles, starting from september this year and going all the way to 2010, with a new song released every two weeks. They even gave us a preview taste with Return of White Rabitt. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins actually talked about this method some time ago, but nothing was settled. Beyond this being important news for Ash fans, we have to wonder: is this the beginning of the singles revolution ? As we all know, the iTunes culture really made its mark on the industry, as increasingly more people prefer to download just certain tracks from an artist’s album. This is certainly one of the reasons why bands are no longer releasing simple cd’s, but also limited edition boxsets and DVD’s and bonus tracks and whatnot. The method adopted by Ash will surely offer equal spotlight to all new material and it might be very effective for a band that doesn’t make a lot from album sales. This could be the spark that ignites the singles takeover. On the other hand, it will take a long time for people to part ways with the traditional way of buying music – that unique moment when you open a cd for the first time and fear to even touch, as it is so pristine + the original artwork…

RETURN OF THE WHITE RABITT