Innovation and Technology
Barenaked Ladies has often attempted to utilize new technologies to promote themselves and their music. They were among the early adopters of computers for promotion when they released an "Interactive Press Kit" on floppy disk for Maybe You Should Drive in 1994, which earned them a MuchMusic Video Award. They used their website to allow fans to choose between two songs ("Be My Yoko Ono" and "Alternative Girlfriend") for inclusion on their greatest hits CD, Disc One (though polling was nearly tied and both songs were included).
Beginning in April 2003, the band began a blog on its website to keep fans updated personally, coinciding with the band's return to the studio for Everything to Everyone. During a subsequent studio session, for Barenaked Ladies Are Me, Ed Robertson began a podcast in addition to the blog which ran from February to August 2006 (with a series of four videos added in early 2007 with highlights from the band's first cruise.
The band has adopted many of the current online social networking sites, including accounts on MySpace, Facebook, and most recently, Twitter. The Twitter feed has been integrated into the band's site, and it also typically announces new blog posts with a link. These accounts have been used for contests and to debut new tracks. Different band members have also had individual accounts on these sites at times.
Barenaked Ladies has sold recordings of almost all of its live concerts since early 2004. Initially, concerts were sold on CD-R or as MP3 downloads. By the end of 2004, lossless FLAC files were also offered. Professionally printed copies of some concerts were later offered through some isolated record stores, and some concerts have been added to the iTunes Music Stores and other digital retailers.
The band was praised for a unique use of USB flash drive technology. The band offered its 2004 Barenaked For the Holidays album on a customized flash drive in MP3 format, with extras including bonus tracks, and photos and videos from the studio sessions for the album. The band used a 128 MB USB stick, limiting the bitrate of the music included. The band described the product as a test of the technology and the market for that technology. It subsequently released Are Me in the USB format as well (on a 256 MB stick). The band also incorporated the technology into its live music sales, offering fans a copy of concerts in MP3 format on a USB stick at the merchandise booth directly after the show.
In 2009 the band took part in an interactive documentary series called City Sonic. The series, which featured 20 Toronto artists, had Tyler Stewart reflecting on his memories of the now closed Ultrasound Showbar. The films were accompanied by an iPhone application, which uses GPS technology to unlock more videos when the user is close to the specific location.
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Famous quotes containing the words innovation and, innovation and/or technology:
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)