Death Grips Drama

Holy shit you guys.

I know there is a thread about their new album, but this story is too good for that subforum.

http://pitchfork.com/news/48044-death-grips-say-their-label-shut-down-their-website/

http://noisey.vice.c...down-by-the-man

  Quote

Hours after they boldly leaked their major label debut LP, Sacramento noise-rap masterminds Death Grips just got their site blackballed, presumably by The Man. As of press time, we're getting a big fat error message when we try to view their site, thirdworlds.com:

 

 

This could be because the band leaked the album before its non-existant release date, snubbing Epic by tweeting that "the label will be hearing the album for the first time." It also might be because they used an erect dick with marker pen writing on it as the album art. Either way, it proves two things: Major labels still have a bit of veto power, and Death Grips does not give a FUCK.

As of now, you can still stream the record. Take our word for it, it rules.

Censored album cover...

Lol!

Listening to the album it's quite good. Cool story too, props to them for stickin it to the label. Sounds like they were getting fucked around a little bit.

Also... big cock covered in sharpie for album artwork...lol

retarded

"sight"

lol

FUK DA MAN

If any of you "like" DG on facebook, they are pumping the leak links like crazy.

I haven't gotten to hear the album yet. I've been too entertained reading every article they post that mentions how they are fucking over Epic records.

So sweet.

Sad thing is they will probably get absolutely fucked in the end, probably face jail-time or some other ridiculous punishment for breaking their contract with Epic (Sony is the parent company...). It's probably in Epic's contract that they have exclusive rights of the music from the time of the contract signing etc and their leak probably constitutes illegal file sharing and copyright infringement or something else bogus lol.

But glad someone is standing up to the big labels!

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

i'm involved in editing the associated wiki articles. it's fun.

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

this may very well be interpreted as hyperbole but the more groups that do this the closer we get to the existing outdated method of music distribution dying.

admittedly death grips, trent, and radiohead are at the more extreme end of the spectrum.

Moral of the story...don't sign shitty record contracts?

or if you do, fuck the contract.

edit: title track is fucking SPLENDID

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:14 AM, kaini said:

edit: title track is fucking SPLENDID

agreed. wait are you talking about "No Love" or "Deep Web"?

2 separate trax.. "No Love" is crazy good

yes.

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:19 AM, StephenG said:

agreed. wait are you talking about "No Love" or "Deep Web"?

yes

also

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:11 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

 

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

 

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

but Death Grips signed with them in the first place. they knew good and well you can't usually release a major label album within a month or two after it's completion without intricate planning ahead of time. they were possibly lied to by whoever their contact/s are there, but nonetheless, they're not idiots. Zach Hill at least has been on the music scene for years, he knows how that shit works.

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:38 AM, auxien said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:11 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

 

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

 

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

but Death Grips signed with them in the first place. they knew good and well you can't usually release a major label album within a month or two after it's completion without intricate planning ahead of time. they were possibly lied to by whoever their contact/s are there, but nonetheless, they're not idiots. Zach Hill at least has been on the music scene for years, he knows how that shit works.

Yeah you and Noise have got a good point. But from a PR (marketing standpoint) it still isn't good business to give away for free what you can charge for... unless it's just to hype up their "style" to augment future sales or something.

anyway I'm liking the album so far, it's different thats for sure! (I've never heard death grips before today)

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:46 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:38 AM, auxien said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:11 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

 

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

 

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

but Death Grips signed with them in the first place. they knew good and well you can't usually release a major label album within a month or two after it's completion without intricate planning ahead of time. they were possibly lied to by whoever their contact/s are there, but nonetheless, they're not idiots. Zach Hill at least has been on the music scene for years, he knows how that shit works.

 

Yeah you and Noise have got a good point. But from a PR (marketing standpoint) it still isn't good business to give away for free what you can charge for... unless it's just to hype up their "style" to augment future sales or something.

 

anyway I'm liking the album so far, it's different thats for sure! (I've never heard death grips before today)

gave away for free everyone including label deal with it

deal with it

i love it

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:38 AM, auxien said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:11 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

 

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

 

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

but Death Grips signed with them in the first place. they knew good and well you can't usually release a major label album within a month or two after it's completion without intricate planning ahead of time. they were possibly lied to by whoever their contact/s are there, but nonetheless, they're not idiots. Zach Hill at least has been on the music scene for years, he knows how that shit works.

There's probably more to it than that.

DG did cancel a big tour to complete this album. In doing so, they probably lost out on a lot of dough. Who knows what the specifics of the contract/record release are.

Re: Zach Hill. Sure, he's been around the block, but have any of his projects been released on such a big label in the past? Epic is a really big one (Michael Jackson, J Lo, Ozzy, Avril Lavigne, etc).

If this is a marketing stunt, it seems like a very experimental and risky one.

gotta love it when people screw with major labels

but yeah what were they doing signing with Epic in the first place? isn't their message in part that money is evil, fuck the man, etc etc? whenever i see politically minded groups signing to major riaa labels it makes me handegg. i don't listen to enough of DG to claim i understand them in any way but i got the general impression that they wouldn't be the sort of folks to sign onto a label alongside the names avril lavigne, TLC, ciara etc

  Quote

But it was the group's unsettling, low-budget video for the song "Guillotine" that caught Cob-Baehler's attention. In October, after a courtship by several labels following the mixtape release, Death Grips ventured to Sony's Los Angeles headquarters. There, MC Ride tagged the company's bathroom with graffiti before the meeting, demonstrating a sense of rebellion that sold executives on the threesome. What's unusual is how the group responded to Epic's pitch, especially given its anti-establishment attitude.

 

The deal was ironed out in less than five hours. The label convinced the group that it was on the same page, promising not to compromise its artistic integrity or assume its publishing rights.

 

"We were kind of taking things with a grain of salt," Hill says. "That's generally what we do with anybody on the outside that's coming into the inside. But it became very apparent that these people really understood what we were doing and to not mess with it. They generally believed in this as something that was different."

http://www.billboard.com/column/the-juice/death-grips-talk-epic-record-deal-new-music-1006846552.story#/column/the-juice/death-grips-talk-epic-record-deal-new-music-1006846552.story

Five hours to convince them that it was on the same page as the group, lol. "Oh yeah, we're totally anti-establishment here at Epic, a division of Sony - your message really speaks to us, just earlier today I was playing it on the way to the meeting. Sounds great in the Lexus."

why don't they just quickly record another album before the end of the year?

my guess is their site got killed by their hosting company for bandwidth/cpu usage/aup violation, and the label had nothing to do with it.

they were using hostmonster, which is a notoriously shitty $5/month webhost. most discount hosts have an automated system that automatically suspends your account once you start using up a non-trivial amount of bandwidth or processing power... which typically doesn't take long, especially if you haven't configured your site properly, or do something stupid like try to use it as a file sharing service.

http://host411.hostm...thirdworlds.net

  On 10/2/2012 at 4:09 AM, chaosmachine said:

my guess is their site got killed by their hosting company for bandwidth/cpu usage/aup violation, and the label had nothing to do with it.

 

they were using hostmonster, which is a notoriously shitty $5/month webhost. most discount hosts have an automated system that automatically suspends your account once you start using up a non-trivial amount of bandwidth or processing power... which typically doesn't take long, especially if you haven't configured your site properly, or do something stupid like try to use it as a file sharing service.

 

http://host411.hostm...thirdworlds.net

might actually listen to this now after ignore all the thread over at /mu/ about it.

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:46 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:38 AM, auxien said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:11 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

 

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

 

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

but Death Grips signed with them in the first place. they knew good and well you can't usually release a major label album within a month or two after it's completion without intricate planning ahead of time. they were possibly lied to by whoever their contact/s are there, but nonetheless, they're not idiots. Zach Hill at least has been on the music scene for years, he knows how that shit works.

 

Yeah you and Noise have got a good point. But from a PR (marketing standpoint) it still isn't good business to give away for free what you can charge for... unless it's just to hype up their "style" to augment future sales or something.

 

anyway I'm liking the album so far, it's different thats for sure! (I've never heard death grips before today)

yeah i'm thinking the hype for future releases plays into it partially. either that or they just truly do not think things through, which is certainly a possibility.

yeah it's not bad, there's some misses but not bad over all. Exmilitary has some standout tracks on it, as does the last one. these two newest ones are kind more 'party'-ish over all.

  On 10/2/2012 at 1:59 AM, jefferoo said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:38 AM, auxien said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:11 AM, StephenG said:

  On 10/2/2012 at 12:04 AM, noise said:

how the fuck is this 'standing up' when they signed with them in the first place? it's all pr.

 

I thought it was pretty clear. The label won't give the group a release date, simply saying we will release it sometime next year. The group says fuck off, and releases it for free, obviously cutting very deeply into the royalties the record label will recieve from this release considering far fewer physical copies will be sold.

 

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

 

but Death Grips signed with them in the first place. they knew good and well you can't usually release a major label album within a month or two after it's completion without intricate planning ahead of time. they were possibly lied to by whoever their contact/s are there, but nonetheless, they're not idiots. Zach Hill at least has been on the music scene for years, he knows how that shit works.

 

There's probably more to it than that.

 

DG did cancel a big tour to complete this album. In doing so, they probably lost out on a lot of dough. Who knows what the specifics of the contract/record release are.

Re: Zach Hill. Sure, he's been around the block, but have any of his projects been released on such a big label in the past? Epic is a really big one (Michael Jackson, J Lo, Ozzy, Avril Lavigne, etc).

 

If this is a marketing stunt, it seems like a very experimental and risky one.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

erect penis

 

well he was at least with Team Sleep, i'm pretty sure that album came out on a major or a major's subsidiary. i'm not particularly familiar with all of his projects but he has to have talked to a lawyer at some point in time at least since they signed to Epic...they all gotta know what the hell legal recourse they may be facing fucking around like that. chances are the label will still make money off of the record somehow or another.