Rapidly declining CD sales show that it is becoming increasingly difficult to sell music.
Record labels and independent artists have tried a number of gimmicks to try and reverse this. Remember Prince gave away his album with an English newspaper and Radiohead told fans to set their own price.
Now some New Zealand companies are giving it a go, combining music with fashion.
Mikee Tucker is hyped about Loop recording's world first “album tee" concept. Instead of buying a Yes King CD, they are urging people to buy a Huffer t-shirt, and then download the album using a code on the swing tag.
“We're just constantly looking for ways to fight the declining CD sales and put brands together and digital's the future as well,” says Tucker.
It is another gimmick the music industry here is testing to sell music, when people are not going to record stores to buy it.
“It's about minimising the merchandise that's at gigs and about opening music into completely new arenas and crossing it over,” says Tucker.
Steven Dunstan from Huffer says the t-shirt is also about putting something tangible with digital music.
“I've got a vinyl collection at home. But to be honest I’ve stopped buying vinyl. Digital's convenient but at the same time I miss what you get from buying a record,” says Dunstan.
Music, in whatever format, hasn't been selling well for some time. In 2002 album sales here peaked at 7.6 million dollars, and they have been steadily declining ever since. The album t-shirt is just the latest idea to reverse this.
Last year Prince shocked the record industry by giving away his album Planet Earth with The Mail on Sunday, in a deal worth a more than half a million dollars to the artist.
And Radiohead gained considerable notoriety when they asked fans to pay whatever they liked for a low quality digital download of their In Rainbows album.
But while they bucked traditional release trends, the gimmick became the story, demoting the music to sidebar status.
So how does Yes King feel about their "album tee"?
“You could say it's a gimmick but in the end as long as the stuff is quality it's representing something cool,” says Mark Rae from Yes King.
But as well as being cool, it has also got to be practical...
“We're going to do yes king socks and underpants next,” laughs Rae
This might be a tad cheaper than the 70 dollar huffer album tee.