Theft, Or Marketing, Or Something Else?

Dunno, but it's probably good marketing, nonetheless. Kylie denies it, calling it 'disheartening'. Won't make any difference to me. Just tell me where to send my credit card info when the project's completed:

ONE song leaked online looks like carelessness, but when up to 10 demos linked to Kylie Minogue's new album are circulating in cyberspace, it feels like marketing.

Minogue's post-cancer comeback project has been a leaky vessel since November 2004 when a song she wrote with New York glam pop act the Scissor Sisters appeared online.

But in the past fortnight, five new songs have been uploaded onto file sharing sites, while fan sites are claiming that a three-CD set of 49 demos exists for those canny enough to track them down.

It adds up to an audio scrapbook of works in progress, including a song written for Kylie by Boy George and a rumoured cover of Culture Club's 1980s hit Victims.

But should we think we're so lucky? More likely we're just being had, by a cunning cyber age twist on the old record company ruse of manipulating what gets played where.

Leaking online might not be as obvious as bribing disc jockeys to play songs, but it might be just as effective.

"She and her record company leaked the tracks deliberately," said music industry analyst Phil Tripp, who runs Australian music consultancy Immedia!

"It's the newest gimmick in the industry, the leaking of tracks. It's the new marketing black. It's at a time when she needs as much positive press as she can get. Not just her, but everyone in the industry. You need as much exposure as you can get, and you need as much advance publicity as possible."

The music blogs agree. "We don't really approve of leaked tracks flying around the web before an album's even been completed," said British music site Pop Justice but, in the case of Kylie Minogue, the constant, relentless barrage of leaked material seems suspiciously intentional.

...Although YouTube has already pulled many of the fan-made videos for the demo songs, at the insistence of the record label, and some of the file-sharing sites have blocked the pirate downloads, the songs have already been widely distributed by Minogue's active online fan base, through forums and blogs.

Kylie impersonator Lucy Holmes, the singer in tribute band 100%Kylie, discovered new tracks Stars, Fool For You and Sensitized more than a week ago on one of the fan sites.

"It's classic Kylie pop," says Holmes. "She's staying true to her pop roots." Holmes doesn't think the leaks will hurt future sales. "Not many people get to hear them," she says. "They just get to hear about them. It's just a little entree, a little tease."