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Justin Bieber Continues The Proud Tradition Of Golden Ticket Promotions

Posted 3/19/10 1:55 pm EST by in Music


Justin Bieber's new album My World 2.0 hits stores this Tuesday, March 23. It follows up his wildly successful debut My World, which featured an interesting concept. Enclosed in physical copies of My World were "golden tickets," which earned the finder the right to prizes like a private concert with Bieber and the opportunity to be in one of his music videos. So far, only one person has found one (a lucky fan in Arizona who will be getting a personalized Bieber show soon), and the golden ticket concept is back for My World 2.0.

This time around, he's really kicking it up a notch. The big winners who find golden tickets in copies of My World 2.0 will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas to hang with Bieber and attend a concert there. It's a pretty plush prize — though perhaps not the biggest golden ticket of all time. Check out six of the best promotions of all time.

HEALTH
For the release of their 2009 album Get Color, the California noise rock monsters went to extremes with the best "golden ticket" promotion of all time. They sent out 66 total tickets, with the grand prize being a trip to Los Angeles to hang out with the band and have your every whim attended to for three days. Other prizes included limited-edition merchandise, personal items from band members and — our favorite — a drunk arts and crafts session conducted over iChat.

Lamb of God
You would think this rugged metal band's only promotion should be "Buy our album ... or else!" But because you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, they dropped lottery tickets into the first 100,000 copies of their 2009 album Wrath. Winning tickets yielded VIP concert passes, instruments, guitar lessons, trips to see the band and "roadie for a day" experiences.

30 Seconds to Mars
Always thinking about the fans first, Jared Leto's band dropped tickets into copies of their album A Beautiful Lie that could be exchanged for backstage access to concerts.

Arctic Monkeys
In 2009, the British band rewarded two hardcore fans who picked up vinyl copies of their single "Crying Lightning" with tickets to Reading and Leeds, two of the U.K.'s biggest summer festivals.

Willy Wonka
Of course.

Metallica
Five people who picked up special copies of the band's documentary Some Kind of Monster scored trips to San Francisco to meet the band.

What "Golden Ticket" promotion is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

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MTV News' #MusicMonday: Rihanna, Sean Garrett And HEALTH

Posted 12/28/09 4:31 pm EST by in Music


Really, you should be listening to music every day, but thanks to Twitter, Monday has become the best day of the week to discover new songs, show some love to the tune currently dominating your iPod playlist and quietly judge the listening habits of your closest friends. Yes, it's #MusicMonday, one of Twitter's most enduring trending topic. Hence "MTV News' #MusicMonday," a weekly look at the songs we're obsessing about here in the Newsroom. Here's what's on our playlists right now.

Kyle Anderson, MTV Newsroom Blog Editor: "I didn't much like the first two singles from the Rihanna album, but 'Hard' is pretty amazing. It helps that the video is totally cuckoo-bananas, but the beat is tight, the melody is infectious and the verse by Young Jeezy is pure heat. Plus, it actually sounds hard. When Rated R first came out, I listened to it and thought, 'I don't hear a hit,' but it looks like this is another entry in the 'Kyle Was Wrong' folder."
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Justin Bieber Giving Away 'Golden Tickets' In Copies Of My World

Posted 11/6/09 12:08 pm EST by in Music


Has any young artist done a better job at creating buzz for his debut album than Justin Bieber? The Canadian kid whose entire career was kickstarted after he posted footage of himself singing on YouTube has gone completely grassroots, building up his Twitter followers, making Facebook friends, dropping strategic singles and delivering on key performances on shows like "Today" and "Ellen." The build has all been leading up to the release of his album My World on November 17, which features the already-ubiquitous singles "One Time," "One Less Lonely Girl" and "Love Me."

Now comes the next chapter in Bieber's media blitz — one that he is borrowing from Willy Wonka. Bieber announced via his Twitter that select copies of his album will come bundled with golden tickets. The recipients of said tickets will be entitled to a fan-friendly prize that is typically Bieber: They will receive a private concert from the singer himself. We expect his legions of rabid fans to pick up copies of My World by the truckload for the opportunity for a personal show from Bieber.

Bieber isn't the first person to steal the concept from Roald Dahl. A handful of rock bands have tried to boost album sales with the promise of prizes inside. Lamb of God included lottery tickets in their 2009 album Wrath that were redeemable for trips to see the band and signed memorabilia. 30 Seconds to Mars included a dozen golden tickets scattered around copies of A Beautiful Lie that gave the winner free backstage access to any of the band's concerts. Though nothing beats the recent promotion from noise-mongers HEALTH, who circulated 66 golden tickets in their recent album Get Color that were redeemable for all sorts of prizes, including a trip to Los Angeles to hang out with the band, posters autographed in their blood and all manner of personalized content. (Our favorite: "A recording of a short story read by a band member.")

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HEALTH Distort, Destroy And Disorient In Brooklyn

Posted 6/22/09 3:17 pm EST by in Concerts, Music


By Jett Wells

Make no mistake about it: HEALTH, the Los Angeles noise-rock quartet, are utterly insane in concert. But it's an artfully-crafted brand of insane. On stage, they send out torrents of explosive, violent sound that leaves you numb and foggy-headed and soaked in liters of your own sweat. Those were my first few thoughts during their Saturday (June 20) night assault at Brooklyn art-dive the Market Hotel. Then I hit on another: John Famiglietti is the most dynamic and ferocious bassist in indie rock right now.

Here's why: Minutes before kicking off the show, Famiglietti stepped up to the front of the Market Hotel's tiny, construction-paper covered stage, strapped on his long, red electric bass and plugged in his plethora of effect pedals. How many pedals could a bassist possibly need? Apparently Famiglietti needed a lot, and only moments later it was clear why.
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