Artists and bands often have multiple ways of playing their songs and, frequently, fans prefer one of the non-album versions of the song.  Anyone who has ever experienced this should get in a moderately long but growing line of people that desire to kiss the feet of Andrew Futral and The Age of Rockets.

The Age of Rockets (Andrew Futral, Saul Simon-MacWilliams, Bess Rogers and Adam Christagau), an unsigned indie band out of New York, has come up with the idea to record three versions of ten different songs and release it as a 30-track triple album.  This way, fans can pick their favorite of the three different recordings of each song thereby creating their own special official version of the album.

The Age of Rockets ask for donations to make their triple album idea a reality

The band refers to this idea as a “choose your own adventure album” in reference to the once popular children books.

In a hilarious video explaining the project and asking for donations to help make the project a reality, frontman Futral says that record labels were not interested in the idea.  This made him realize he was definitely onto something.

Why recording three different tracks for ten songs is such a good idea

Obviously, making three versions of each song costs extra money and probably does not make the best business sense.  But, from an artistic standpoint, being able to explore three different visions for a song instead of making hard choices about tempo and style because you only get one track to record per song must be sensationally liberating.

Furthermore, from a fan perspective, being able to hear and pick from such a generous variety of styles and tempos is a dream come true.

For a small, unsigned band such as The Age of Rockets, this idea could make better business sense than record labels realize.  The public does not go to stores and buy albums as often anymore.  People more and more frequently are purchasing and downloading individual songs from the internet.

By having three different versions of each track, this new album will likely get many more purchases of all ten songs.  Whether this will make up for the extra money it costs to produce 30 tracks in the studio is yet to be seen.

Whether this new concept to album making proves to be business savvy or not, it is without a doubt one of the most innovative and fan friendly ideas to come along in a while.  I, for one, hope this catches on with other artists.

Back in 2002, Shania Twain released three different versions of her album Up! for country, pop and international audiences. Twain’s vision was much more macro in manner and seems to have had more of a marketing fueled idea behind it, but if I’m handing out kudos for this concept, I would be neglegent not to mention her name.  There very well may be other instances of artists/bands doing something similar to this, and I give kudos to them as well.