【Mr & Mrs Jones (2010)】

I was sitting at my work desk just like any other day,Mr & Mrs Jones (2010) when I opened up Instagram and saw something that blew my mind: My favorite band, Brand New, unexpectedly announced an album release after eight long years of rumors and build up.

But this announcement wasn't like other surprise albums by superstars like Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. There were no heavily promoted Apple Music premiers, no social media stunts, and certainly no pop-up shops to promote the upcoming tour.

The Instagram post that I saw was actually pretty boring. It was only a few lines of text, and it didn't even say the name of the new album. Instead, it just said the "very limited" and "ships in October."

It was exactly what I'd come to expect from my favorite emo-scene veterans who don't seem to care what anyone thinks about the band andhave been known to flout traditional (and overtly thirsty) music marketing conventions.

LP5 limited vinyl pre-order now available at procrastinatemusictraitors.com

A post shared by Brand New (@brandnewrock) on Aug 15, 2017 at 9:01am PDT

The band has relied on its intensely loyal fanbase during its two decades of success, as evidenced by the outpouring of think-pieces for the tenth anniversary of their third album last year.

Now, the band's new album, Science Fiction,is currently number one on the Billboard 200 chart, and it's managed to reach this pinnacle by circumventing all of the traditional album release conventions and engaging directly with their fans.

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What's most surprising is that the album wasn't even available on streaming sites when it was first announced. Fans were asked to buy the album directly from the band's website, and the physical copies aren't even scheduled to ship until October. The band also didn't give out any early samples to the press -- leaving everyone scouring for authentic versions of the album for a couple of days after the announcement.

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The band reportedly sent out 500 physical CDs to preorder customers with the record as a single track following the big Instagram announcement. Those packages started arriving two days later, and soon after, the album, Science Fiction, was made available for purchase via digital download on the band's site.

It was almost as if they didn't care how well the album sold. The band didn't release any singles, videos, or make any TV appearances to lead into the album, and they certainly didn't slap their image on UPS trucks like Taylor Swift. The band didn't cut any deals with Sprint like Jay-Z, either. They sent the music straight to their fans instead.

Despite all of this, Science Fictionhas risen to number one, and if you check out the number two album on the chart below, Project Baby Twoby Kodak Black, you can easily get a sense of how unusual the success of this album is.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Kodak Black's popular rap record moved 50,000 units in total, 8,000 of which were from traditional album sales instead of streams, according to Billboard. By comparison, Brand New moved 58,000 units to take the top spot, and a whopping 55,000 came via traditional album sales — meaning fans actually boughtthe album, without just streaming it on a loop on Spotify.

Science Fiction's release strategy likely won't result in a long reign atop the charts and will likely never be duplicated, but that probably doesn't matter to Brand New because the band has already teased retirement in 2018 after a two-decade run.

Watching the band reach the number one spot on Billboard was awesome to see. I'm the type of fan who dropped everything I was doing to track the rumors online as soon as I saw the post, then spent money to download the album. I took a deep dive into weird forums and realized that more people than I expected were doing the same on Twitter as we all collectively lost our minds.

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Brand New's successful album launch is a reminder that we don't need these overwrought album releases like the one's we've seen from other pop stars. The band made something great by relying purely on the fact that the fan's would be there to support it — even without the social media crusade that has become the standard for surprise album releases in 2017. Brand New's release was, in the end, all about the music. Give it a listen, and you might just feel the same way.

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