Staind Keeps Me As a Fan With “Illusion” Experience

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Staind was offering some very cool pricing options to sell it’s latest release, “The Illusion of Progress”, which goes on sale today.

They bundled the CD with a T-Shirt and a one-year membership to the fan club for around 28 bones. Not a bad deal as you’d probably pay that much for a t-shirt at a show. Plus, the CD came with 3 exclusive live versions of of “It’s Been Awhile”, “Devil”, and Schizophrentic Conversations”.

As a huge Staind fan, this was obviously a no-brainer purchase and I really like the way they went about setting the product up - this is how to sell an album. You get a whole fan experience in one shot - the album, the behind the scenes video stuff, and the t-shirt to show the world how big of a fan you are.

But wait, oh it gets so much better. Want to really make a fan a HUGE fan? Send them the CD 3 days before it goes on sale to the general public. Yup, Saturday morning I step out side and see a big package hanging out of the mailbox and my eyes lit up! I got the album before anybody else did, I felt SPECIAL. I’m part of the club.

As far as the actual album, I like it, even after maybe 5-6 listens. It’s typical melo-drama Staind. Arron’s lyrics are pretty much the same - depressing one second and lovey-dovey the next, but you don’t care because dammit, you love the sound his voice makes. Musically, the band rocks on this album, a little heavier throughout.

The only bad thing about the whole experience is their label, Atlantic, is a bunch of fucking morons. All you need to do to set up the exclusive fan club content is give me a username and password and let me in. But no, they have to force you to install some bullshit software that does who-knows- what. Software that doesn’t install properly.

And the website and password? Go to dysfunctionalstaind.com and enter the code at the prompt. What prompt? What’s my username? Why does the fan club have to be on a different domain then their main site? How the hell do I log in?

Idiots. I know it’s not the band’s fault, they don’t play around with code. It’s the label that screwed what otherwise was a really awesome fan experience and soured it with bullshit. Oh well.

Here’s the album. THEY put it on iMeem so I didn’t have to!

Their main site, Staind.com, other then it’s load time, is very well put together though. They incorporated Ning into the site very very well, and I am impressed with it.

Anyone who wants to hate on Staind, don’t do it here, I don’t have time for haters.