double play

Kurt Wagner and the 13 other members of the Nashville-based indie pop orchestra Lambchop had two goals when they entered the studio last year. They wanted to create a seventh official CD that would capture everything the band has been over its decade-long recording career. And they wanted to create a second CD of similar scope and equal quality that would be available only through the band's website and from the merchandise table at its live shows.

By the time Lambchop finished recording, Wagner says, it was clear that it had more than enough material for a pair of discs members could feel good about releasing. All that remained to be done was dividing the music into two self-contained collections and then deciding which record to offer for general distribution and which to reserve for dedicated fans.

The answer came with some help from the band's record label, Merge, an independent company based in Chapel Hill, N.C. After bandleader Wagner talked things over with the label, the decision was made to release both new CDs through Merge -- not in the form of a double CD, but as two separate discs. The discs, "Aw C'Mon" and "No, You C'Mon," came out on Tuesday.

Their release marked at least the fifth time in the last two years that a single act has released two different albums on the same day.

Dark singer-songwriter Tom Waits was first with the May 7, 2002, simultaneous release of the stylistically linked "Alice" and "Blood Money." Once and future Pixies frontman Frank Black followed three months later with "Black Letter Days" and "Devil's Workshop," CDs linked by little other than a release date, a minimalist take on recording, and Black's trademark searing performance style.

Then late last year, Replacements alum Paul Westerberg and rising star Ryan Adams got in on the act. In early October, Westerberg released the Replacements-esque "Come Feel Me Tremble" under his own name and the blues-flavored "Dead Man Shake" under the pseudonym Grandpaboy. Adams offered the rocked-out, full-length "Rock N Roll" and the quiet, contemplative EP "Love Is Hell, Pt. 1" on Nov. 4.

There's no single reason for releasing two discs at once, but Wagner is certain Lambchop won't be the last indie band to do it. Because home studio technology and digital recording are so widespread now, he says, it's possible for acts to make companion discs without breaking the band.

"It's an interesting thing, because I think it hasn't come out of just artistic concerns," Wagner says. "It's also evolved out of the way you can record. With the accessibility of these tools, you can put out as much music as you want now."

Waits and his label, Epitaph, put out "Blood Money" and "Alice" together because the songwriter had made recordings of two operatic works with one group of musicians. They didn't see a point in creating an artificial division by releasing two discs a year apart or in creating an artificial unity by combining them in a single two-disc package.

For Adams, the double release settled a disagreement between the artist and his label, Lost Highway. The label wanted a commercially focused release while Adams was bent on making an artistic statement. Adams agreed to deliver the album Lost Highway wanted, "Rock N Roll," while the label consented to put out "Love Is Hell," though it insisted on dividing the original long-player into two EPs to cut down on competition with the disc it favored ("Love Is Hell, Pt. 2" came out Dec. 9).

Neither Black nor Westerberg will admit to a conscious strategy in releasing two discs at once. Both claim that they simply make records and deliver them to labels, which do the rest. But in each case, the embrace of low-tech, live-in-studio recording techniques has allowed the recording artist to keep pace with the prolific songwriter -- who is one and the same.

A few major labels have gone the same-day release route. In 1992, Bruce Springsteen put out "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town" simultaneously. The year before, Guns N' Roses issued "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II."

The two Lambchop discs mark the first time an act on an indie label has offered two separate works intended to function individually or as companion pieces. Although Magnetic Fields' three-disc cycle, "69 Love Songs," was released by Merge as individual discs as well as in a single box set on Sept. 7, 1999, that trio of discs was intended as a single work. Merge offered them individually only because it was not convinced fans would pay for all three at once. The Black, Westerberg, Waits, and Adams discs were all conceived purely as individual works that, for differing reasons, ended up being released together.

The key to whether such efforts succeed, of course, is quality. Just because it's possible for artists to put out as much music as they want doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea.

Wagner says Lambchop considered that and wouldn't have done a double drop if it didn't believe it had the material to support it. "The fact was that we did have this excess of material that we felt really good about and we had to address it in some way," he says. The idea of combining it on a double CD didn't work, he says, because it would have asked too much of fans' finances and time.

While the records are different -- "Aw C'Mon," functions as a unified whole; "No, You C'Mon" works as a collection of songs -- they're stylistically similar. Each contains a bit of everything Lambchop has ever been: a little pop, a little soul, a hint of country. There's a song that focuses on Wagner's vocals and Tony Crow's spare piano playing and a song fleshed out with soaring string arrangements; a nod to the band's most commercially successful CD, 2001's "Nixon," balanced by a nod to its most critically lauded disc, 2002's "Is a Woman."

That, says Wagner, is different from a double CD, which asks to be considered as a single work. Wagner believes that puts too much of a burden on the listener.

Jeff Price, head of SpinArt, the indie label behind Frank Black's double drop, expresses similar feelings about two-disc sets.

"When I pick up a double album, I'm thinking, `There's a lot here and I know there's going to be some filler,' " Price says. "I think that's just the natural reaction of a fan to a double album."

It's a rare double album that works as well as OutKast's Grammy winning "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below." And even that disc is more like a simultaneous release of two individual discs, offering as it does one CD crafted by each of OutKast's principals, Andre 3000 and Big Boi.

While some listeners may look at the same-day release of two single discs as essentially the same as a double CD, Price says, fans coming to those discs months or years down the road will probably view them as independent entities and listen to them as such.

That said, Price points out that his label didn't talk Black into splitting what might have been a double release. "To be perfectly blunt, we were told by the artist that he had two CDs and he didn't want them released as a double, because he saw them as separate albums," he notes. "So we went back and forth and finally decided the best thing to do was to release them both at once."

That decision led to certain savings for the label -- only one poster was created, there was just one publicity and marketing campaign for the two discs -- but it also created challenges, particularly with radio. Because college radio, which is where indie artists get the most exposure, isn't singles oriented, stations ended up splitting plays between the two records. That kept either disc from achieving a high position on the college radio charts.

Dropping two CDs by an act with a cult following -- like Black, Westerberg, Waits or, at this point, Lambchop -- also brings up questions about commercial viability, Price says.

"A record by Frank Black sells just so many copies," Price says. "So if you drop two on the same day, the question is are both going to sell that number? Let's say that number is 50,000, are both going to sell that? Or will each of them sell 25,000?"

For Black, the answer turned out to be somewhere in between.

"Aggregate sales were better than any single Frank Black & the Catholics album," Price says. "But neither disc sold as well on its own as any single album."

And while sales were even during the early weeks after release, over the long term "Black Letter Days" has outsold "Devil's Workshop." Price believes that's a result of the fact that "Black Letter Days" offers 19 tracks while "Devil's Workshop" has 12.

"I guess people figure they're getting the most for their money with `Black Letter Days,' " he says.

Martin Hall, Merge's publicity director, says he expects "Aw C'Mon" and "No, You C'Mon" to realize similar lopsided sales numbers over the long term. The number of tracks won't play any part in the split (both discs have 12 songs), but something else is bound to affect sales.

"One record might get better reviews than the other," Hall says. "Or one might get radio play and the other won't. I don't know what it will be."

Another possibility, Hall notes, is retail practices will affect sales. "Buyers will decide one record is going to sell better than the other, and they'll stock more of that record," Hall says. "Then, when you go into the store, the record they bought less of is more likely to be sold out, so you buy the other. So the buyers end up creating the situation they foresaw."

Larry Mansdorf, buyer for Boston-based Newbury Comics, says his chain is stocking the Lambchop discs in even numbers. He does expect one disc to outsell the other, but he can't say which will win. And while it won't be because of anything Newbury Comics does, Mansdorf does believe retail plays a part in such splits.

Mansdorf, Price, and Hall agree with Wagner's assessment that the double-drop trend will probably continue. All three, however, are sure that releasing two CDs at the same time is something that will only happen after an act has exhibited a commitment to making quality records. "It can't be a fleeting, flavor-of-the-month band," Mansdorf says. "It's got to be an established artist. Otherwise, it's just not going to sell."