12.08.2008

lost your i/denti/tee? get a new one.



this is a pretty sweet idea: lyrics on tee shirts. novel, i know.

the concept is it has to start with "i." because... they like that.
i'm not really sure why.

i know it has nothing to do with iTunes other than that you get a free 10 iTunes songs with every tee purchase. that's pretty cool, admittedly, but that's also cos i'm a (legal) music download addict. a definite plus when their tees are $35 + S&H.

it's socially conscious, too. from their FAQ:
'Grow-to-sew' African means that from the cotton they source, through the spinning and knitting stages, all the way to the final logo print on the inside of every music tee - the benefit of each goes back to the people working on the product in sub-Saharan Africa.

only dilemma here? their lyrics are LAME.
of their current 9-tee line, the only one i can maybe relate to enough for purchasing... ok, well, none of them. and i even like Joan Jett by a lot. but for personalized feel, these "i" lyrics aren't really doing it for me.

i actually went through and read all 200+ song lyrics you can vote for. i submitted another 20 or so (odd that you can't also say who the artist is). i have not yet seen any added to the 200+ choices for the new line.

my suggestions included but were not limited to:
i am flawed if i'm not free [rilo kiley]
i won't sit nice & be quiet [the trucks]
i swear by my wrists that we're better than this [park]
i choose light i choose love [the submarines]
i want to be the car crash [snow patrol]
i am better with a pen [fall out boy]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi there...

writing from www.identitee.com.

just wanted to respond to your great feeback.

sorry you're not in love with our launch lyrics, but i'm glad you submitted.

the process will work like this:
1. you submit
2. we doublecheck it
3. verify it
4. then make it available on the widget.
5. people vote for it.

the more votes it gets, the more likely we'll add to the next batch to get legally cleared.

then we print them.

we're also working on adding artist info, etc.

we're basically working through all the new submissions and site updates now.

so please try and bear with us as we try to keep up with everyones' great submissions.

thanks!
-the identitee team

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the nice stuff. Its cool.

the girl Riot™ said...

@adam -- oh i recognize it may take some time, i wasn't aware of the length of time such a process would mean. i was more concerned with; how will you judge popularity with new lyrics being added? they won't have the same 'run time.' also, at first i didn't realize you could scroll down for more than the first 10 lyrics. a note on that would have been helpful. lastly, it'd be nice to know when more lyrics have been added, since they'll wind up past 200! a blog with featured lyrics (along with perhaps their list vote #) would also be helpful :) but it is a rockin' idea, and thank you for commenting and talking with me!

adam said...

hi girl riot,

i'm back.

no sweat on the lyrics.
ps.. we're adding them in there for you now. in the process of verifying at the moment. we've gotten about 700+ submissions. so it'll be a day or three before the new lyrics go up.

we judge popularity based upon the number of votes a given lyric gets.

which means if the lyric isn't widely known, we're hoping that the people who love it will spread the word and guide their friends to vote. in a sense, it's crowd-sourcing.

and i totally agree with you on the widget. we're actually in the midst of some drastic updates to the widget, the page it lives on, and some other cool tools. needless to say a scroll bar and some hints will be added in.

you're idea about notifying folks about when more lyrics have been added is fantastic! i guess the best way to do it is to have people opt-in as they vote.

our initial plan was to notify someone who submitted if/when their lyric was cleared to print. but you bring up a great point. i think we'll have to find a better way to incorporate your suggestion, cuz i think it's great!

thanks so much for helping us get better!

-a.

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