That album looks good on you

Music has long inspired the creation and sales of products in every category from electronics to clothes. The emergence of boutique music-oriented fashion brands, such as Lyric Culture and i/denti/tee, allows consumers to literally wear their favorite song lyrics on their sleeves. And even iconic maestros have leveraged their own musical masterpieces to generate interest in less commercial passion projects - as Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse recently did on behalf of their haunting David Lynch collaboration, Dark Night of the Soul. While such novel tactics may utilize music to help sell more consumer products, the inverse equation rarely holds true, with such doing little to improve upon methods of digital music distribution. (After all, did any of those faddish USB-drive distributed albums really spark album sales?) However, despite the sad state of music sales, a new distribution method, The Music Tee, has industry insiders excited as of late.

The Music Tee is a savvy collaboration between indie fashion label LnA (best known for their simple white tees) and music arbiter Invisible DJ (best known for curating in-store playlists for SoCal staples like Ron Herman and Juicy Couture). Featuring original album art on the front of a tee and a playlist on the back, the shirt also boasts a URL code-embedded hangtag that allows the wearer to download the album. It's doubtful that the advent of the Music Tee distribution model will stop anyone from renewing their RapidShare Pro account, but it could ultimately drive some people to pay for music once again - and may reinvigorate the concept of the complete album in this age of disposable singles. The shirt has even sparked new controversy in the music industry as to whether sales will count towards Nielsen Soundscan figures: Nielsen reps have said they have no intention of counting the sales, but the record labels behind each shirt can reportedly impart sales figures to Nielsen upon receiving them from Invisible DJ. (No finite conclusion to the matter has been reached as of press time.)

The inaugural Tee, dubbed the "mix tape" shirt, features an eclectic mix of tracks from the likes of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Alice Russell, Theresa Andersson, WAZ, and more. The first artist-specific shirt - The Mos Def Music Tee, featuring Mos Def's forthcoming album The Ecstatic - drops on July 7^th. A Downtown Records collection of Tees featuring Miike Snow, Santigold, and Cold War Kids is also in the works, along with an extended line of "mix tape" shirts to be sold exclusively at upscale fashionista emporium Shopbop. Should The Music Tee concept take off, it will not only give artists some much needed sales, but, in this age where most music consumers never even see liner notes, it will also reinvigorate the art of the album cover. While it's certainly nice to hang an LP on your wall, being able to wear it may be even cooler.