Pitchfork's Adam Moerder reviewed Harvery Danger's Little By Little and nowhere in the four paragraphs and 440 words was there a mention that the album is given away free at the band's website. (To be fair, I should note the first two paragraphs gave the band's background.)

He closes by saying, "Little by Little (save two or three tracks) reads like a carbon dating test, displaying the band's decaying sound gradually assimilating with its exhausted surroundings."

Coolfer gave it a listen and thought it was a pretty good album, but anyway, the moral of the story is this: Giving away music -- especially an entire album -- gets a little buzz, gets the attention of Boing Boing and may get a few blog links here and there, but it's still not the cornerstone of a good business plan. It helps people cherry pick those two or three good tracks, though, and it elicits a lot of "Free stuff! Free stuff!" cheers all across the Internet.

(Photo by Ryan Schierling)