October 28th, 2008
By John DeFore
Pretenders bandleader Chrissie Hynde has been visible for years as a vegetarian and PETA supporter, but her latest album nods to the well-being of the plant world as well.
The first copies of the band’s new album Break up the Concrete come wrapped in a half-sleeve made of handmade paper with tiny seeds molded into it. Listeners can soak the paper in water and plant it in hopes of growing some flowers.
Such paper has been appearing here and there, from product packaging to stationery for home use. Often, it’s used in places where a piece of normal paper would otherwise be used — a batch of Universal Music CDs earlier this year used seed paper for an insert with codes for free digital downloads — but in the Pretenders’ case it’s there for its own sake: the “J Card” doesn’t even serve the purpose such inserts usually do, which is to print the artist and album name on the package’s top spine for easy reading on record-store racks.
Other parts of the Pretenders’ package are green-minded as well, as a Forest Stewardship Council logo on the back cover attests. Unfortunately, the entire package is still wrapped in shrinkwrap — it appears that even the indomitable Chrissie Hynde can’t convince retailers to stock products without that bit of unnecessary packaging.
Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media
