Music Industry Fuck-Up #5,053: Gnarls Barkley MP3s transcoded

This is what happens when the music industry tries to keep up with the kids: In an effort to combat the leak of Gnarls Barkley‘s The Odd Couple, the album’s release date was moved up to last Tuesday and the MP3s rushed to digital retailers. But anyone buying the album on Amazon should demand a refund: The files billed as 256kbps are being called a transcode by bloggers and audiophiles with too much time and spectral analysis software on their hands — meaning, essentially, that the quality of the audio is not what it should be. Ironically, in the wake of this, the Amazon rip has been pulled from OiNK replacement What.cd. Take that, pirates!

Gnarls Barkley – “Run”: stream