An Unconvenient Truth

Previously, on CBC’s The Hour with George Stom—dang, I mean on Operation: Disque Drop…

Welcome back! Today’s imaginary headline reader is George Stromboulopoulos, and dear God, is that a tough last name to spell. George is a former MuchMusic veejay who now hosts a current affairs program aimed at Gen-X’ers called ‘The Hour’ on CBC. I really don’t like him all that much—he was actually kind of a dick to a good friend of mine at a rock festival here a couple years back—but given that I sorta stole the idea for Operation: Disque Drop from his show, I figure it’s only appropriate to give the man his due.

So in my first post here at Op Drop, I gave you guys the skinny on who Alizée is, kinda/sorta filled in the blanks about who I am, and explained—with the power of Lili-fandom’s tactical nuke on my side—why I’m a fan of Alizée’s, despite living half a world away and speaking an entirely different language.

In my second post, I talked a bit about why I started Op Drop—to spread awareness of Alizée in North America, and grow her fanbase here to the point where it’d be viable for her to release an album or book some tour dates here. Then I dropped some history on you, to explain why I’m convinced this isn’t just a fool’s errand.

And in my last post, my longwinded butt finally got around to explaining what I’m actually doing with Op Drop to achieve this lofty goal: burning CDs of Alizée’s music, and “dropping” them in random public places throughout the city for strangers to find—and, hopefully, enjoy—along with information on how to learn more about her, and get involved in her North American fan community. Hence the name, Operation: Disque Drop.

So what’s actually on these discs you’re dropping?

Screw you, imaginary George Stromboulopoulos! I mean, not because you asked the question—that was actually a decent read, bravo—but because I’ve always wanted to say that to your face. What kind of jerk shoves a seventeen year-old girl out of his way at a concert, then scowls at her when she falls over like it was her fault? Your kind of jerk, apparently. And this is why you, imaginary George Stromboulopoulos, are a butthole.

Since you asked, though, allow me to quote directly from the readmefirst.txt file that appears on the disc in question:

WHAT'S ON THE CD?
----------------------

A) Tracks culled from all four of Alizée's albums, plus 2 bonus covers of the Madonna songs "Hung Up" and "La Isla Bonita". It plays best in iTunes, but anything that plays mp3's will do. You can find a track listing at the very bottom of this Readme file.

B) 5 AVI files, including 3 music videos and 2 television performances. We're pretty confident these will win you over.

C) Three desktop wallpapers for your computer from her most recent album, Psychédélices.

D) The Readme file you're reading right now!

So it’s not just music? There’s videos and other stuff on there, too?

Yes, imaginary butthole George Stromboulopoulos, there’s videos and other stuff on there too. Rather than just slap together the 21^st century equivalent of a mix tape, I decided to go the whole ten yards and create a full-on “Alizée Fan Starter Kit”, instead. The reasons for this are pretty simple, and I think they make a lot of sense.

1) It appears hardly anybody actually listens to CDs anymore, at least as far as my target demographic goes. Virtually everybody I know under the age of 50 who bothers with music on the go has an iPod or some kind of mp3 player, even in their cars. And at home, most of them will listen to an iTunes playlist through their PC, rather than pop a disc in the stereo. The last five CDs I actually bought were immediately ripped to iTunes on my computer, then put back in their cases and forgotten about, and comparing notes with friends, it seems to be a pretty common occurance. Given all this, and the available space on the disc, it seemed silly to limit it to just music.

2) From my experience, most fans tend to get hooked on Alizée’s videos and performances first, and find their way towards appreciating her voice and her music second. That’s how it worked for me, and for countless other fans I’ve gotten to know—we came for the shimmy and the smile, then stayed for the talent and the soul behind them. So including some of these into a person’s first exposure to Alizée seemed like a no-brainer, to me. You don’t go to war and leave your best weapons at home…

Are these short sample tracks we’re talking about, here? Or the full versions of the songs? Isn’t this whole thing in violation of copyright law?

A-yep. That it is, butthole George, and thank you for pointing that out. Man, you really are a dick, aren't you?

OK, so let’s get the uncomfortable stuff out of the way: though I’m distributing these discs free of charge, strictly for promotional purposes, for no profit whatsoever (and, in fact, produce them as an out-of-pocket expense), make no claim to ownership of any the material and attribute copyright to all the appropriate parties—all of which I make very clear both in the readme file and on the face of the CD itself—I am still technically violating copyright.

I’m doing so with the best of intentions, mind you, to make more people here aware of Alizée. And I don’t think I’m taking food out of anybody’s mouth in the process—as I said in a previous post, one of the problems with being a North American Alizée fan is that her work is simply not commercially available over here. (Her latest album, Psychédelicés, isn’t even available for download in the American iTunes store.) I’m not distributing a full album, but a sampling of songs from all her albums, many of which are already freely available on the internet, from official sites. And I do make a point of suggesting—again, in the readme file—that the best way a new fan can help Alizée’s cause here is to vote with their wallet, and show the money-people behind her that she does have fans here, who are willing to pay for her music (at a premium, no less)!

At the end of the day, though, I decided to go with full versions of the songs rather than short samples—in for a penny, in for a pound, right? Because, let’s be honest, we’re talking about promoting a French singer to North Americans. Thirty-second samples ain’t gonna cut it.

(Oh, this would probably be a really good time to point out that Operation: Disque Drop is in no way affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Wisteria Song, RCA Records, Sony BMG, Polydor Records, Universal Music Group, or Requium Publishing. So yeah…we mean well. Really. Honest. Please don’t sue.)

Anyway, I think that about wraps it up for this entry. I’m gonna go find the nearest intellectual property attorney and give them a big, warm bear hug. If you feel like doing me a solid, I’d appreciate it if you’d do the same. Let’s keep ‘em all feeling warm and fuzzy and non-litigious, you dig?

See y’all back here tomorrow…same Lili time, same Lili channel.

(P.S. - Seriously, please don’t sue.)