Defying the record industry “man”

This past week (and year for that matter) has been a busy one for Sacramento-based, punk-rap, music group Death Grips.

After their very successful release of their debut album The Money Store in April, the band cancelled every single tour date that they had planned to support their album. Their reason, they announced that they would be releasing yet ANOTHER full-length album later this year that was due out on the same mega record label Epic Records (Sony Entertainment) that released The Money Store. This caused quite an uproar for fans of Death Grips because of how well the album was received in the indie music scene. Everyone wanted to see them live, including myself because I wanted to see them at NXNE this year!

A few weeks ago the band announced on both their Facebook and Twitter pages that their album is entitled “No Love Deep Web” and would be released October 23.

With that being said, on September 30 the band released cryptic information that on October 1 there would be a very big surprise. Almost an hour later the band confirmed that they would be releasing No Love Deep Web AND it that “the label will be hearing it for the first time with you”. The band garnished instant hype and buzz all over the Internet because of that comment, and also because of the pure essence of “label-defying”.

Once No Love Deep Web had been "leaked", the album was well received for its musical comment, but neglected because of the album artwork. (I’m not going to go into detail because it involves explicit material). A censored version was quickly put in place, and helped the audiences feel a littler better while listening to the 45 minutes of music. ALSO, it was/is available for an absolutely free download.

Overall I thought that Death Grips, intentionally or not, did the perfect amount of personal PR for themselves. Not only did they get the word out about their album to the mass audience, they did so by capitalizing on the constant theme of protest and rebellion that has been so prominent in today’s society. Some may take this as an ignorant move by the band, but all we know is that the label can’t be too mad if they still have them on their active roster list, and are supporting them as they embark on a massive international tour this fall.

Listen to No Love Deep Web:

Read the review: Pitchfork | NO LOVE DEEP WEB