FISTFULAYENThank You, Radiohead
My wife used to work at Capitol Records and remains friendly with Radiohead’s manager, Chris. When “Hail To The Thief” leaked the rumors were that the leak was intentional. I mailed Chris and asked him if there was truth to the rumor. He mailed back (paraphrasing), “I wish we were that clever! What should we do?” My advice was to post a note to the band’s site saying, “We know you have the record. Feel free to pay us what you think it’s worth,” or somesuch, leave a PayPal link, and watch the money roll in. Since they had a label at the time that was a bit tricky and, well, nothing happened except Capitol sold less records than they might have otherwise.
Radiohead has been without a label since that record. It’s been long-discussed where they would go. Rumor was they were seriously considering Warner, but to be honest Chris never gave me a sign despite repeated questioning. Mixed with my questioning was a slight bit of pleading that they go with no label at all, to show it could be done. Fact is, there was easy money for them in writing their own label ticket. Everyone I discussed the issue with said they’d be stupid not to take it (Bob Lefsetz has a pretty good discussion of why conventional wisdom says they should take the cash instead of looking behind door #3). I resigned myself to the notion they’d probably go for the money and that’s ok, their kids need to eat and hey, who knows how long they’ll be in their creative prime.
Well, Radiohead just made my year. Their new record, “In Rainbows”, can now be pre-ordered from their site in two formats: a) “DISCBOX” at forty pounds, which comes with CDs, LPs, and digital download, b) “DOWNLOAD”, which is a digital download and for which you can pay whatever you feel it’s worth, a little as one pound plus a forty-five pence credit card service charge.
I just happily spent eighty weak US dollars (after conversion) on the DISCBOX. If the speed of their site is any gauge, I’m not the only one. If you’re inclined to like Radiohead, buy for yourself. Spend what you think the music is worth. Sleep knowing that the money is going into the band’s pocket.
Key to success in the music industry in the future? Make great music that people want to hear. Go figure.
ian
Wally Punsapy wrote:
I did the same. Eighty smackaroos, but, like you said, it’s going straight to the band. I can dig it.
I like the pay-whatcha-like idea. How do small, more unknown bands play too?
Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 12:55 am ¶
Ian Caldwell wrote:
sites down….. bummer their site must be getting loads of traffic.
Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 7:55 am ¶
Hunter wrote:
“I like the pay-whatcha-like idea. How do small, more unknown bands play too?”
Wally: like this.
http://www.andrewosenga.com/blog/letters-to-the-editor-vol-1/
Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 8:18 am ¶
Tracy wrote:
The deal closer for me is getting it on vinyl. Offer me an interesting package and you catch my interest. I hate CDs and the dust that they collect while wasting space.
I hope that this works well for them and other bands follow their example. Even if this is not their greatest album ever, I see this as money well-spent as a way to cast my vote for a new approach to the music “business”.
FYI: Their server is still getting killed. If you use the direct links that Ian provided, you can still order the album. If you go to inrainbows.com you get directed back to the radiohead site. I hope that they figure out the distribution process for the album download on Oct 10.
Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 9:45 am ¶
Stoyan wrote:
Here’s Thom Yorke on downloading music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioyqmeVszis
Off topic, but there’s a funnier “Thom Yorke on people making love while listening to Radiohead”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaZM0qQejhg
Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 1:31 pm ¶
Preston wrote:
This one has me absolutely torn. I really enjoy Radiohead’s music. I am all for supporting a band. If this was a normal release I’d be at the store on release date to buy it. As it is, I’ll probably just get the digital version – $80 is a bit much for me right now. So I’m let trying to decide how much to pay for the digital download. And I honestly am not sure of the answer to that one yet…
Posted 01 Oct 2007 at 3:24 pm ¶
kareem wrote:
love what they’ve done, but can’t find out if the digital download consists of mp3s. any idea?
Posted 06 Oct 2007 at 8:10 pm ¶
Burst Labs wrote:
Just found your site and am really enjoying your writing… adding it to my daily RSS reads, definitely!
It’s pretty clear you have an enviable connection to the band… and here at Burst we’re big fans… but we’re left wondering what is the album truly worth?
And @ Wally : ’small, more unknown bands’ don’t stand a chance with this business model. IMHO, this only works with acts that have been established through the old system. Who knows where the Top Level Acts will be built from now on?! A brave new world, indeed.
We dropped our $0.02 on the topic at our music licensing blog :
http://blog.burstlabs.com/2007/what-is-radioheads-music-worth/
Come on by and say hi.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 6:23 pm ¶
Burst Labs wrote:
@ kareem
It just came out today that the download version of In Rainbows is 160k mp3s. Egh.
DRM-free, however, which is nice.
Posted 09 Oct 2007 at 6:25 pm ¶
kareem wrote:
thanks burst!
Posted 10 Oct 2007 at 2:15 am ¶
mike wrote:
thank you, radiohead
Posted 09 Nov 2007 at 2:48 am ¶