There is one last twist in the long and arduous journey for Knife Party's long-anticipated and delayed album Abandon Ship. Just when it seemed like the album when all set and ready to go with a special marketing plan in place, the album sprung a leak and was put on iTunes three weeks early, causing it to shoot instantly all the way up to No. 3 on iTunes's overall album charts in the United States, No. 2 in Australia and No. 4 in the U.K., according to Mixmag.
Often times artists purposefully "leak" songs as a way of building hype for an album for another project, but this appears to be an accident that went well for Knife Party and Big Beat/Atlantic.
The album was scheduled for release Nov. 24, the same day as David Guetta's sixth artist album Listen. A full slate of promos was set up over the next few weeks, including an album premiere on Thump and then a special album feature and interview with Zane Lowe on BBC Radio One. With the album out now, three weeks early, it does not seem like pre-album marketing is necessary anymore.
Two days after the leak, the album still sits in the Top 10 of the overall iTunes album charts, ahead of stars like Luke Bryan, Sam Smith, Miranda Lambert, Azelia Banks and Jason Aldean. For a dance music album that is not very accessible to a pop audience, that is quite impressive and is another indication of how much the dance music scene has grown in the United States in the past few years.
It is interesting that iTunes lists the release date as "Oct. 27, 2014," which means there was miscommunication that occurred between Knife Party, the label and iTunes. Either way, the album is doing well and all parties should be happy with the outcome, even if they had to take a different, albeit shorter and more sudden, turn to get there.
We saw this earlier in the week with Skrillex's Ease My Mind/Ragga Bomb remix EP from the same label. It is unclear what is going on — if this is a marketing ploy or a serious error — but it is interesting to see these leaks come out now.
Stream the album on their SoundCloud account and make sure you head to iTunes, according to via YourEDM, to grab the full LP now.
