An open letter to Necessary Records/Atlantic and every record company out there effing up their artists on the internet.

10 minutes ago i didnt give a damn about this band. I ignored them, didn't know anything about them, couldn't care less frankly. So what happened ? What was it that made me change my mind and why am i raving about them ?

Well, listening to Talksport on the internet which i do very often, I came across an advert that had the chorus

"eh eh eh, oh oh oh, ah, ah, ah".

It was an advert for Hard Fi's album. Ok i ignored it for about 6 plays and then i decided hmm i liked the sound, the energy and the danceability of the bass line. I was listening to a 32k webcast, not full mp3 quality but enough to know what i was listening to. Add to this the chorus and the absolute football chantiness (ok forgive me im making up the words here) about it. But i was only listening to 10 sec of the whole song. 10 Seconds was enough to spur me on.

So i looked on the net to try and listen to the whole album in one continuous stream. No can do. I didnt have time to go to Itunes and listen so I went on to Rhapsody and yes the album was there and i am listening to it and it's fantastic.

The moral of the story. Executives, a&r people, bands & managers who lurk on this messageboard TAKE NOTICE. I didn't need the whole album in pristine quality. I didn't need a half a million dollar music video to seduce my eyes. I didn't need heavy rotation of the full song on the radio. I just needed 10 seconds of 'Eh, eh, eh, oh, oh, oh, ah, ah, ah" played a few times with a voice over promoting the Hard fi album. I didn't even know the name of the song or the album. I had just the hook and the band's name.

I then googled the band and found that was a complete waste of time. Atlantic why isn't Hard Fi's website top of Google, when you search for Hard Fi ? Why isn't there a one-click link where i can listen to the whole album song after song without intervention on my part ? without going to Itunes ? I don't care if it is just 30 sec clips of the best hook.

SACK YOUR online marketing team. These sort of schoolboy errors result in lost sales.

However, I decided to give them one more chance. I avoided mybloatedspace with its viruses and fancy graphics that slow my machine to a halt. Don't those fools realise we are actually working and need the resources of our computers ! Well i then went on another computer and checked Rhapsody and now i'm streaming the whole album and I love it. It is now in my playlist.

The point is this. I didn't have a lot of time to waste, I just wanted to take advantage of the hook in my head which i loved and wanted to hear more but your online strategy almost killed it for me. Thank God you had the brains to license it to Rhapsody but I have to be American or in America to listen to it. IS this MADNESS OR WHAT !

Why can't Australian, Nigerian, Polish, English, Japanese, ROW have access to Rhapsody. This IDIOCY is the reason for Piracy. If we had worldwide streaming music by subscription, we would stream away while we work. It's clean, processor friendly and great quality. If i couldn't listen to the album on Rhapsody, guess what would have happened ? My 20 bucks would've gone to someone else that's what. By the way I don't work for Real Networks or Rhapsody, I just have a brain and see that in many cases this is a no brainer solution for now !

We don't always need 3 minutes of FREE music, just 10 seconds of MAGIC will do.

Ps: Atlantic, congratulations on a great advert on Talksport. This is the second time i bought a record off the back of a 10 second ad. The last time was Jennifer Rush 'Crush' which i also heard on Talksport in 1998. Go figure !