MARILLION TO RELEASE LP ON WEB

MARILLION TO RELEASE LP ON WEB

Rock veterans MARILLION will release their forthcoming album for free on the Internet in a bid to widen their fanbase.
The Kayleigh hitmakers will make their new release, Happiness is the Road, available as a free download on file-sharing sites - but will make listeners provide their email address so they can be added to the band's mailing list.
Keyboard player Mark Kelly says, "We're willing to try new things and we want to see what happens. Everybody's aware of the effect of peer-to-peer file-sharing on CD sales and the music industry in general.
"Up until recently we've felt fairly immune to that because the fans have been really supportive of the band and, I suppose, because of the age demographic, they do tend to prefer CDs to downloads."
And Kelly insists that a recent experiment by Radiohead, who released their 2007 In Rainbows album online on a "pay what you want" basis, was a success despite widespread reports that it cost the band money.
He adds: "People forget Radiohead were still number one in the album charts. They (critics) also say they weren't very successful because they only got an average of GBP2 per download. But they wouldn't have got GBP2 per sale from EMI, so in those terms it was actually a big success, and they still sold CDs."
Happiness is the Road is due to be released on 20 October (08).