Kaiser Chiefs' pioneering album release 'overshadowed' music

Kaiser Chiefs admit the band's latest album struggled to make an impact because the pioneering way of releasing the record "overshadowed" the songs.

The I Predict A Riot hitmakers launched their latest record, The Future is Medieval, online in June, and allowed fans to choose 10 songs from 20 available to compile their own tracklist and then make their own customised album cover.

The hard copy was released three weeks later, but failed to set the charts alight, and bassist Simon Rex insists the unique digital campaign caught fans' attention more than the music itself.

He tells the Daily Star, "The publicity around the 'choose your own version' overshadowed the CD so much that still no one knows it's out."

And frontman Ricky Wilson is convinced the band should only have released the CD version once followers had got used to the digital format, adding, "Our record label wanted to release the CD in time for festival season so that everyone knew the new songs. I can see that logic, but I'd have waited to release the CD until now, once everyone got their heads around the digital release."