Preview the album the week it lands

The week an album lands, every pirate site pretends it has the whole file. Wave will have the index: artwork, track list, thirty-second previews, and — when the artist uploaded a video — the official YouTube of that same title. That is not a lesser product. It is the product we are allowed to ship.

If you are not signed in, stay on the clip. That is how discovery is licensed. If you are signed in and the match fails, you also stay on the clip. A wrong live from 2019 is worse than thirty honest seconds. The blog will keep saying that in week-of posts, because the temptation to “just put the zip up” does not go away.

From the blog to the player

A good album post ends in a place you can press play. We link the album page, the artist page, and New Releases when the record is in the live feed. Twitter should do the same: one URL, one claim, no file. Regular posting is how people find the desk. Legal playback is how the desk stays up.

Read News if you want the longer argument about ads, payouts, and why catalog pages stay ad-free. Use this blog when you want the date, the title, and a way to hear the week’s records without stealing them.