NEWS: Promo Wars

MUSIC: Promo Wars

It's a tale as old as time: you send out advance promos to writers, who subsidize their income by selling them to the local record store, and eventually some of them find their way on to eBay and thence to the Information Superhighway long before the official release date.

Despite the fact that it doubles as a publicity stunt in its own right, you've got to hand it to Darkness singer Justin Hawkins for putting his money where his mouth is in a one-man losing battle against the universe: he reportedly spent £350 to purchase a promo copy of his own band's new album on eBay in order "to stop it being leaked."

This is the most bizarre arms race in entertainment industry history. You want to stop the album being leaked because then people might hear about it and want to buy it? They're afraid people will download it instead of paying? Once it's released, the cat's out of the bag and whoever was just going to download it will do so anyway.

The most remarkable thing about this story is that someone was willing to pay over £340 for a Darkness CD

[Edited on Nov 09, 2005 8:26PM]

He should take a page out of Rhymesayers' book. They actually have someome say the reviewer's name and stick it in the songs. Like the normal promo voice-over, but with a name instead. Then all Justin'd have to do is play it.

Maybe Justin should have called the new album The Holy Grail

I'm sure the LEAD SINGER of the band can afford to pay that much for his own CD.