A Record I Will Never Hear

Going through the stacks of CDs on my desk just a minute ago, I came across the new record by the Faint, which came out a few weeks ago to not a whole lot of fanfare. I've always been at least passingly interested in their music, and have come to respect them, if only for being so far ahead of the game in terms of the whole dance-punk thing. And then just yesterday, I read a New York Press article about them, and learned that they'd drifted away from the Saddle Creek Records scene, which they were so much a part of for over a decade. They released the new record (their first in four years), Fascination, on their own Blank.Wav Records label, which is a move I can support. 

But the fact that they released the record on their own actually made it even more disconcerting and, frankly, infuriating, when, after inserting the disc into my computer, I got a message saying it could not be played. They water-marked the shit out of it, making it so that it can be played practically nowhere. I remember taking home a similarly-protected promo copy of the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America back in 2006, and not being able to listen to it on my computer, in my car, or on my big, main stereo system in my apartment. If I remember correctly, the only stereo that would play it was a tiny, shitty boombox. And, well, I definitely do not care enough about the Faint to go through all that. So, sorry dudes in the Faint, you should tell the people at, er, your record label that, next time around, you might get a little more press if you actually allow members of the press to, you know, listen to your record.