Sub Pop goes digital with back catalogue

The Sub Pop record label has been long loved by many record collectors and indie fans. Their back catalogue is wonderfully patchy and obscure, and includes everyone from Bonnie Prince Billy, to Nirvana, to The Shins to Billy Childish, to Flight of the Conchords. I could go on and on. Well, for those of you who have been scurrying around looking for Sup Pop 100 on original vinyl… you might want to try out the online music store they’ve just set up.

They have over 200 full-length albums for sale in 192kbps MP3 for $9.90 a throw and, although they’re not offering single tracks (and in fairness, why should they?), they’re planning on upgrading the bitrate soon and adding album art to the packages in PDF or a similar format (as, at present, they have cover art embedded in the MP3s). When they get to bringing out the posher versions, anyone who bought the ‘lesser’ product will get the updated version for free. Is this the way forward for indie labels?
Check out the Sub Pop digital store here.
[via Gizmodo]