Somewhere probably in the top 3 or so reasons why you should buy more stuff from us here at the Sub Pop brand internet concern (the others in the running being “friendliness” and “because we all really want to keep our super cushy, glamorous music industry jobs”) is that we are forever giving away tons of free crap! And, frequently, the stuff we are giving away might not even, in certain circles, under the proper lighting, fall directly under the heading of “crap”!

For instance… Right now (it’s Fri. May 21, 2010), if you pre-order the new Blitzen Trapper album Destroyer of the Void from us before June 8, we will give you, for free and in addition to the album itself (which will cost you), a very attractive and also quite functional beverage “koozie”! This thing is made of some kind of foam, it’s hunter orange, and in a brown ink that from a distance kind of looks maybe like green, says “Blitzen Trapper” right on it in an artful typeface reminiscent of that used on the Destroyer of the Void album cover! There’s more info on all of that right here.

And, it’s FREE!

Another example… Until its May 25th release date, if you pre-order the new David Cross CD/DVD Bigger and Blackerer in the specially (“a little bit lower”) priced CD + DVD combo pack, you will (probably – it’s a while supplies last deal) also get, for free, a signed (by David Cross, no less) copy of the handsomely-printed bio for this release!

Other recent examples of free junk that we’ve given away to people who pre-order records from us (with the associated bands in parentheses)…
- Special posters (CocoRosie!)
- CDRs with tracks not on the album (Avi Buffalo!)
- Cassettes (weird!) with tracks not on the album (Male Bonding!, Dum Dum Girls!)
- Special scrapbook/lyric books (Beach House!)
- Personal “thank you” phone calls from the artist (Eugene Mirman!)
- We’ve also given away DVDs, lenticular postcards, bandannas, 7" singles, and a bunch of other stuff! No doubt you get the picture.

AND ALSO! Sometimes we do contests on the website, where we give away the very same records that we so often attempt to entice you people to buy. Like, for example, in the recent If You Could Ask Davis Cross One Question, What Would It Be? contest we asked you guys to come up with questions for David and then included some of them in Lacey’s interview with him (which, you should read because it’s funny). And, the five people whose questions were chosen each received FOR FREE both the Bigger and Blackerer CD and DVD. We are, you are correct in believing, exceedingly nice. Another example: for each of the first few months of this year, until she decided to hang it up, Lacey was giving away copies of all of our releases for each month in her A Form of Paying Attention column. Like so:

January
February
March
April

And, of course, we’re forever giving away free mp3s from the records we put out. Right now, we have free tracks up from upcoming, not even yet released records on the artist pages (under the clever/very obvious, we hope, heading of “Listen”) for…

David Cross
Blitzen Trapper
Wolf Parade
and streams of two tracks from Foals

And, we’re giving away free tracks from very recent and very excellent releases by such wonderfully talented, pleasant-smelling artists as…

Male Bonding
CocoRosie
Avi Buffalo
Dum Dum Girls
Happy Birthday
and The Ruby Suns

So much, so free! For you!