Wednesday is Radiohead’s web giveaway day
Radiohead’s decision to sell - or give away - their music directly to their fans via the web is the “music news story of the year”, according to one of many postings on the On The Record blog this week.
Much of the web and media coverage this week has focused on Radiohead’s unusual plan to let the public decide how much to pay - and they can choose to pay nothing but a tiny administration charge - when they download the band’s new album, In Rainbows, from Wednesday next. This is a first for a band of their stature.
Hardcore fans can also buy the album in physical form. Many have already put in orders for the £40 (€57) deluxe “discbox” of In Rainbows - containing two CDs, two 12-inch vinyl records, artwork and lyric booklets - to be shipped in time for Christmas.
However, amid all the hype about the band’s decision to bypass the conventional record label fandango, it could be overlooked that there will also be a conventional CD release in 2008.
Radiohead’s former label EMI claims to be in talks with the band, and other labels doubtless are keen to work with them too, so you can expect the conventional CD release to involve a label tie-in of one kind or another.
This is to be expected when you consider the huge costs and administrative headaches involved in overseeing the distribution of an album to a worldwide market. Radiohead will probably rely on the expertise of an established major indie or chain of distribution companies, which will naturally take a cut.
Other heritage acts are certain to follow Radiohead’s high- profile move, and some will be hoping for a similar PR bump.
Pity The Charlatans then, who picked a bad week to announce plans to give away their forthcoming album as a free download - only to see their news overshadowed by Thom and friends’ announcement.
But the Radiohead move is unlikely to be a useful business model for new bands or acts who have not yet developed large followings.
Because of past revenue and future live earnings and income, not to mention the brand they’ve created with the help of six albums on EMI, Radiohead can afford to go it alone. They can also afford to let their fans decide how much the new album is worth. It will be interesting to see if other acts do likewise.
On the blog today: how much would you pay for a new album by your favourite act?
I think it would depend on how good the album was. I’d wait around and find out if it was any use or not. As for the Radiohead thing: I wouldn’t pay €57 for the Second Coming of Christ, even if he did fold out of a really cool discbox.
Comment by Neilo | October 5, 2007 at 11:32 amI’d pay a Euro and download it and listen. If i liked it, i’d pay the balance to bring it up to a fiver, which I’d assume goes straight to the band once deductions for the server administration etc is taken away. I’m not sure how much a band would get into their arse pocket out of my paying fifteen Euro or whatever in HMV; the reason I won’t pay as much tho’ isn’t cos of the net bottom line, more that the sound quality of an mp3 is significantly less than a CD. In other words (and whether you can hear it or not!) you get, on say, a 75 minute CD bought in the shop a certain level of sound recording. On the mp3 equivalent you get a tenth of that. If i’m losing 90% of the sound (or rather my dog probably is) then i’m not paying full whack!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, Fido wants to hear the end of Sgt Pepper again…
Comment by ivan | October 5, 2007 at 12:10 pmhttp://www.whatpricedidyouchoose.com/sample_comments_and_prices
Comment by peter | October 5, 2007 at 12:52 pmJust a brief comment on mp3s that is often overlooked. An mp3 will only be significantly worse quality than a CD if it is encoded at a low bit rate, say 128 kbs or less. A 192 kbs mp3 is not too far off CD quality. This point often seems to be ignored in the whole mp3 debate. The audio quality of the mp3 is set when its made, lower quality = smaller file, higher quality = bigger file. So in effect, this really is only a short term problem. 10 years ago big hard drives were expensive and download speeds were slow, hence the need for low quality and small mp3 files. Give it another ten years and there will be no reason why full, uncompressed CD quality audio can be downloaded and stored on huge hard drives. So in essence the audio quality issue of digital audio downloads will be irrelevant in time. I am interested to know what mp3 quality the Radiohead album will be though.!!
Comment by Enda | October 5, 2007 at 2:27 pmneilo - i think the boxset is solely for the die-hard fans, the thousands of whom who claim to have been at the band’s first Rock Garden gig in Dublin when there was actually only 40 punters there (and 2 of us were upstairs at the pinball machine - much better entertainment). And please dont say I’m wrong about this - both Thom Yorke and I have reasons to remember that gig…..
ivan and enda - good points about the MP3 quality, which will be of huge consequence to this particular audience. While a younger audience couldn’t care less about audio quality, Radiohead do not attract young fans (cue outrage from young Radiohead fans)
peter - u bet me to the punch with that one. It would be more interesting, of course, to know if the band themselves intend to publish a breakdown of how many paid what for the download
Comment by Jim Carroll | October 5, 2007 at 3:37 pmif you’re after sound quality buy vinyl and if you’re after quality do not buy radiohead.
Comment by billy lyons | October 5, 2007 at 4:04 pm“amid all the hype about the band’s decision to bypass the conventional record labels”…. Did radiohead themselves ever claim to be bypassing traditional record labels? Seems to me that all that hype has been coming from other sources, music writers, blogs, etc, etc.
Comment by Enda | October 5, 2007 at 4:44 pm