Album leaks help the record industry

As anyone who pays attention to the music scene can tell you, album releases aren't what they used to be. Back in the day, when the release date for a new album was announced, music fans had to wait weeks on end for it to come out, before lining up outside the record store when the magical day arrived.

My, how times have changed.

These days the first time you hear an album is not when it reaches stores, but rather when it appears online. Quite often, albums will hit the web months before they hit the store, giving fans an early taste of the record they long to hold in their hands.

However, is this a good thing? Music fans tend to be divided on that issue. While some people cherish the opportunity to hear their favorite band's latest work, purists long for the old days when hearing a new album required walking to the record store and paying money for the album before you could hear it.

Count me firmly in the first group.

At the end of the day, album leaks are good thing. Not only do they provide listeners with a chance to hear new music before they decide if it's worth spending money on, they are beneficial for the record industry as well.

If a great album leaks early, it will generate buzz about that album and more people will go buy it. Just look at Drake and Eminem. Both of their albums leaked a few weeks before they released and they both debuted at #1. More importantly, they both were among the highest selling albums of the summer.

Speaking from experience, I can tell you that hearing albums before they come out is a joyous experience. Two of the albums I was most excited about this summer were Stone Temple Pilots' self-titled comeback record, and Tom Petty's "Mojo".

I heard both albums before they were released and, in both instances, I bought the record as soon as it was available in the store. Hearing the albums early did not deter me from wanting to buy them. If anything, I was more excited to add them to my collection, since I already knew how good they are.

If record labels are smart, they should want albums to leak early, especially albums by their flagship artists. The fact is, if an album is good, people will buy it. Likewise, if an album sucks, people probably won't buy it.

All leaking an album does is help people make up their mind faster. In an industry where record sales are declining left and right, the quicker people can decide they want to buy an album, the better.

It's the 21st century. Downloading music has already been around for more than a decade. Record labels need to stop living in denial and understand that people are going to download music.

Some bands are already well aware of this. Last year, U2 posted No Line On the Horizon on their MySpace page three weeks before it came out. It debuted at number one and sold 300,000 copies in its first week.

Leaking albums helps everybody. It gives artists free publicity for their new album and it gives fans a chance to sample new music before spending their hard-earned cash on it.

It's a mutually beneficial system, and it's not going away any time soon. The sooner the music industry understands that, the better.