Steadman gründeten sich 1998 in Hastings, England und machen sehr schönen Britpop/Indierock. Ihr erstes offizielles Album “Loser Friendly” erschien 1999, 2003 folgte das Album “Revive“. In der Zwischenzeit erfolgten Touren mit Bands wie Jet, Ash oder Feeder. In dieser Zeit sammelten sich einige Liveaufnahmen, Tourtagebücher, Fotos und Interviews an. Und all das gibt die Band nun auf ihrer Webseite zum freien Download. Alle Songs wurden dabei CC lizenziert. Man sollte sich wirklich die Zeit nehmen und das Statement des Steadman Sängers, Simon Steadman, zu dieser Entscheidung lesen.

Hier einige Ausschnitte seines Statements:

We decided to give so much away simply because we’d rather our music was out there being listened to than not. New songs will be made available soon. Make some room on your hard drive, tell you friends and neighbours.

It’s a free-for-all.

…We’ve had 2 major label record deals and one independent record deal and although we’ve made money from being musicians it has always been indirectly or as a result of having a deal and never because of record sales.
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A major label artist will need to sell roughly 250,000 – 500,000 records before they see any money for themselves. The artist/s must recoup first. Recouping is basically paying off the debt from costs incurred. These costs includes promotion, recording, marketing, packaging tour support and label reps piloting private planes to come to shows (true story). A record “advance” is similar to borrowing money from a bank except that when you’ve paid back all the money you owe the record label you still only earn a small percentage of future record sales.

All working bands earn the majority of their money through touring, merchandise, film and TV licenses and sponsorship. These are the only ways my band has made money. Unless you’re Madonna, Coldplay or U2, chances are that you’re not going to make money selling records.
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It is the norm now to get music for free or at least purchase only the song you want rather than an album of filler for that one favourite track. People are getting wise to technology and many now have an “if its digital it’s free” attitude about music, movies and software. Future generations will get wiser and more tech savvy to the treasures on the internet. In my opinion this is a good thing.

Steadman - Wave Goodbye (Link zum Album) [LIZENZ]

Steadman (Offizielle Homepage)
Steadman @ Myspace
Steadman (Link zu den Downloads)

Bild: Ausschnitt Steadman