The release date

aaah! i'm so excited for VidCon!!!

will you sign my copy of... everything?

on that note. where would you sign on 117%, cuz it's mostly black. perhaps i should get one of those metalic silver or gold markers...

wow. i can't believe i've actually thought this out. the nerd levels are getting out of control!

Totally unrelated here, but I remembered that a while ago you said you were thinking of re-releasing Parrot Stories, with the leaflet redone/upgraded/addedto/whatever. I only have a digital copy of the CD and am going to buy a physical, but if you are going to change it then I will wait until the new one comes out. Is this still a plan?

I'm leaving it as it is. Purchase away! :D

Oh dear. Charles Manson thing was a total joke comparing Manson who had a big female following and you who seems to have a lot of female fans. Sorry if that wasn't obvious and no offence meant, was not my intention at all. I think this is all quite interesting and it's nice to get other people opinions on this, especially Alexs. lol.

yaaay!!!!! =D

wow. the guy is like Charles Manson. Women travelling from halfway around the world to see him play his guitar for a few hours. Go to your own town and talk to people, i promise there is some cool people out there that you can hang out with without going to have to get on a plane. If you have such devoted fans and then you release an album its going to go down well with people....modern day Charles Manson.

ok, before i read Alex's response, i want to say that i have been watching Alex's vids for... wow, about 2 years now! and i have (and still occasionally listen to) "Nerimania," the free demo release he made available for download.
i didn't have to do anything to get it besides click a button. i didn't pay one penny.
i bought "Parrot Stories" 1) because there were songs on Nerimania i REALLY wanted the studio version of. 2) for pure curiosity.
but i never would have bought the album if i didn't like Nerimania. i listened to that demo almost every day because i genuinely liked the music.
and, SB, i find it a bit insulting that you think all of Alex's fans are young, impressionable teens that he manipulates like some sinister puppet master. i'm older than Alex. i'm rather stubborn and cynical. and the more someone tries to "cleverly manipulate" me, the farther i push away from them.

and to everyone else, is SB being a seriously notsome decepticon, or what?

Reading this crap written by SB, I would like to retract my previous comment, and replace it with "Jealous much?" because it is now totally apparent that that's all this is based on.

Fucking hell!

Up until then, everything you said was very interesting and - for the most part - entirely accurate. While I do love playing music and performing and releasing albums, I probably wouldn't be doing it if I hadn't already built up an audience first. That said, I'm not just out to 'see what the shmucks will buy'. I take great pride in my music and I work incredibly hard to make the music the best I can do. I wouldn't release stuff that wasn't totally ready and that I wasn't completely proud of.

Let's be even clearer on the fact that I'm not a cult leader, a serial killer, or a PSYCHOPATH. (Saying it in caps doesn't help my case, I know. But I'm not.) I'm not asking people to come from far away to see me at gigs. But I know I'd fly across the world if John and Hank Green were putting on a show - in fact, this July, I will be. Assuming loyalty is equal to insanity is incredibly idiotic. But I imagine you just said this out of frustration with the defence my blog readers posed against you, since everything else you said was perfectly educated and well-thought-out. :)

I don't know if that clears it up at all. If you have an opinion of me, it's hard for me to change it. But I don't treat my audience with any kind of patronising attitude, and I don't take anything they do for granted.

Whut?

Of course I am not traveling to the UK only to see them play. I love the UK (I even studied English Language and Culture for a while at university), so it's a nice excuse to visit again. It's like a weekend away with the bonus of seeing some of my fav YouTube musicians. It's not only Alex Day, by the way. There are a lot of other talented people performing like Tom Milsom, Eddplant and KazMills which I am equally excited for.

To put things in perspective: if I lived in Australia, I probably wouldn't have gone. But I live in Holland. I just have to swim a few miles and I'm in London (or I might take go by plane, not sure yet, lol)

Oh, and the comment about not having 'real friends'? Just because I like to hang out with people I know of the internet doesn't mean I don't have any 'real friends'. (By the way, why is someone you know of the internet not a real friend?)

Wha?!?
Charles Manson was a deranged psychopath.
Alex Day is a phenomenally nerdy musician.
Once again it may be difficult to distinguish between the two through your MENTAL HAZE OF NEGATIVITY
If you had the means to see your favorite entertainer live, why wouldn't you?
Who cares if its across the street or across the world.
GLOBALIZATION!
Go with it.

But I'll be gone then! Nooooooo!!!

June sounds soooo much better than July!

My two cents on the discussion going on here:
I've been watching Alex on YouTube for a long time. When he started doing music, I loved it. However, I didn't buy a lot of music back then. I did buy his album because I liked the songs he made and I wanted to support him. I probably wouldn't have bought it if he was just another artist signed to a big record company and I heard his songs on the radio. But I am so happy I did. Alex is now one of my favourite artists.

I think that the fact that he is a vlogger and blogger, makes his music more interesting to me. You have a totally different relationship with the artist than with the artists who do it the old way. Artists like Alex and Tom Milsom somehow seem 'closer' than conventional artists. I wouldn't fly to the UK to see a random artist perform. I AM doing this for the Upload Tour.

I do not think Alex is a sell out. Should he ignore his talents and not show them to the world just because he's a YouTuber? I know making money on YouTube is a difficult subject, but I don't get the people who seem to think that vloggers should do it for free without making money. Why shouldn't they?

I believe he is passionate about his music. He has just found an easy way to sell it but it took a biti of work. He already had fans before he released it who think he is AMAZING AWESOME FUNNY and that helps. Along with this wave of excitement about getting it into the charts there was no way he could fail with sales. Icing on the cake is being with DFTBA. It's not cynical, Alex Day is a clever guy. He put all these things in place to give himself the best possible chance of success as possible so don't say it's all about the music because it is not. It is equally about fanbase and fangirls and hype about DOING IT FOR THE INTERNET! I think there may be an element of supporting the man rather than the music.

Awesome! i love June 28th!
day after high school graduation
first day of college orientation
and now your album? Awesome!

YESSSSSS!
thank you for my bday present in advance.
my mum will get it for me, she loves you too now.
lol
and please put the chords for 'eyelashes' on here :)

Please, Alex.

Please.

oh, mario kart wii is being played in my form room through surround sound speakers.
they are loud.
very.
but the song is awesome.

It would be amazing if your album got into the charts <3 so excited now :)

omg yay :) i cant wait who doesnt want more alex day?? ^_^

You got loads of subscriptions and publicity on youtube that ended up with a series on the BBC. To carry on making videos and being involved in youtube is something that you love and want to keep going. One way of doing this is to make money from the internet so you had to create a product...music. So I have questions about this (btw I like what you are doing, I just think about this sometimes and find it interesting. Please dont take it personally)

Do you think that in some ways you have followed in the footsteps in 'North versus South' and 'S Club 7' by creating a popular personality in videos and using this to sell your music?

Was this deliberate? How do you feel about this?

I believe that some of the people here are SO obsessed and living in youtube, it is their reality. This impressionable youth follow everything you do and say and post. Almost follow it enough to listen to what you tell them to do. I remember the chartjackers gig, you told people the night before where to go and you packed the place out. That was just one part of London so do you feel a certain sense of power and responsibilty with that?

The bad guy in me sees a guy who has an absoloutly amazing following on the internet and is basically trying to get as much money as possible out of these young people. Which you are trying to do because otherwise you would not have money.
The nice guy in me sees a guy who has the internet following and wants a job so decided to release music to see how many of these shmuks would buy it.

It would be so interesting to see the statistics on how many people buying your music were subscribed to your videos first. I think the majority. So are they buying the music for the music or just because you made it?

I sometimes feel uneasy about this. Please set the record straight.

My my aren't we a bit cynical?
-OPINION- {seeing as I am not acquainted with Alex}
Alex has always had an amusing and likable personality and I definitely see his passion for music has emerged over the past few years. I don't think ^ you clearly see it through your mental haze of negativity, but this is not some way of exploiting a captive audience of impressionable teenagers, he's doing something he loves. He’s a great musician. But he is musician, and the only way to make a living as such, is exposure (mental giggle). I mean do you think Lady Gaga would sit around and make music just for herself? No, people need to hear it! You can’t fault Alex for introducing this huge part of himself whoever he can (EPIC mental giggle, it’s 2:30 am, don’t judge my unintentional innuendo). He’s anything but a sell out.
I feel like this just turned into one giant euphemism.
Anyway off to bed!
:D

I completely agree with you Nakiya. I only recently found out about Alex - very recently, through *ashamed* one of his Twilight videos - and I've been hooked by his charm, personality, and obvious talent ever since. I don't want to sound cheesy fan girl, but there's no other way to explain it.

What SB seems to fail to remember is that every human being on the planet is just that - a human being. We all have our moments where the things we do could be misconstrued as being purely for our own personal gain. Unfortunately for the entertainment industries relying on having a captive audience/target market is the *only* way to be successful. I'm not sure why anyone would think that Alex (or anyone else signed to DFTBA for that matter, who - as far as I can gather - are ALL youtube musicians) would not take advantage of the following on their video channels to promote what they're doing. Shit, their videos are what allow them to be musicians in the way that they are! How else are they meant to promote themselves?

At the end of the day, pretty much everything in life costs money. Who can fault someone who has managed to use the resources available to them to be able to live doing the things they love? I don't think that's exploitive - I think it's realistically innovative.

I, like Lee, would also be interested to see Alex's response to this however... I hope I haven't overstepped any boundaries. I have a nasty habit of getting involved in things that don't concern me :D

ahha. SB man that was deep. (not in a good way).

My my aren't we a bit cynical?
-OPINION- {seeing as I am not acquainted with Alex}
Alex has always had an amusing and likable personality and I definitely see his passion for music has emerged over the past few years. I don't think ^ you clearly see it through your mental haze of negativity, but this is not some way of exploiting a captive audience of impressionable teenagers, he's doing something he loves. He’s a great musician. But he is musician, and the only way to make a living as such, is exposure (mental giggle). I mean do you think Lady Gaga would sit around and make music just for herself? No, people need to hear it! You can’t fault Alex for introducing this huge part of himself whoever he can (EPIC mental giggle, it’s 2:30 am, don’t judge my unintentional innuendo). He is anything but a sell out.
I feel like this just turned into one giant euphemism.
anyway off to bed!
:D

I would be interested to see Alex's response to this. Personally I discovered his videos before his music. I found them entertaining so I subscribed. I buy his music because I like it. If it was crap I wouldn't but without the YouTube videos I would of definitely never know about his music.

I'm not a fan girl. I'm a guy who just likes amusing YouTube videos and good music :D

This has made me happy:D You need to put the song "Eyelashes" on the chords/lyrics tab, Alex. You do.

right by my birthday.

good timing is good. (:

I'm so excited. I actually cannot wait!
It would be amazing if you got into the charts =)

<3