Radiohead to let fans choose price of new album
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071002/...t/on_the_net_2

Pay what you want for new Radiohead
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer
Tue Oct 2, 6:51 PM ET


Radiohead is thinking about the future again.

Ten years ago, the British band released their landmark album "OK Computer," a masterpiece hailed as visionary for its forecast of a soul-crushing computerized dystopia.

Sounds a little like today's music industry.

On Monday, Radiohead sent shockwaves through the music biz with the announcement that its new album, "In Rainbows," will be released for download from http://www.radiohead.com on Oct. 10. The price? Whatever you choose. You elect how much to pay, be it one cent, $15 or $100. (A special edition box set with a vinyl version and other items is also available for approximately $81.)

After releasing all six of their previous albums with Capitol Records, Radiohead doesn't currently have a record contract. "In Rainbows" will be available as a DRM-free MP3 download.

Major labels aren't the only ones pondering a potentially bleak financial future where the public expects recorded music to be free. Bands, too, need to find a solution, and Radiohead just proved they're as willing to experiment with distribution as with sonic soundscapes.

Naturally, guitarist Johnny Greenwood announced the album in a Web posting: "Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in ten days," he wrote succinctly.

Radiohead's public relations firm shortly thereafter announced that there will be no advance copies or digital streams for press or anyone else before Oct. 10.

To a certain extent, this can be seen as a way of eliminating the possibility of the album leaking, which typically occurs via advance copies. Fans needn't download it illegally, since they can download it for a penny — or technically more like two pennies, because the lowest option is one British pence.

Radiohead is now discussing contract possibilities with several labels, all of whom can be expected to wonder: "What does Radiohead need us for?" The band is planning a traditional CD release for early next year.

But labels are in the business of distribution, and Radiohead's online release shows the band can fend for themselves. The eyes of the music industry will be on "In Rainbows" to see if this is the watershed moment that will change the business.

Of course, not many bands could pull this off. Radiohead has built a giant, loyal fanbase through its years with Capitol, aided by the label's promotion and distribution. Few bands have the luxury of taking such an audacious risk or the cachet to bank on their fans.

The choose-your-own-price method is doubly risky and seems almost like an experiment to pinpoint pricing demand. But should anyone pay more than what someone is willing to sell it for? Does one have to consult with an ethicist to listen to Radiohead now?

Clearly, Apple's iTunes model isn't satisfactory to Radiohead. The band, which has long believed in the artistic integrity of the album in full, is one of the few acts that still doesn't sell their songs on iTunes.

Prince has also experimented with giving away music. The R&B star has in recent years given away discs to concert attendees and earlier this year distributed his "Planet Earth" album as a free covermount for an English newspaper. The move angered U.K. retailers and led to Sony BMG withdrawing from Prince's global distribution deal.

But Radiohead is completely unfettered now, without a record label to submit to or retailers to placate. With the tool of the Internet, it's just them and their fans.

Hmmm... never realized they were still around.

this will be interesting.
can't wait for the album.

If you mean- not having a lable and releasing their CD on the Internet for One cent- Yep they are still around.

1 cent sounds good to me.

Well, I may get it.

Think about it....I think I heard somewhere that The artist only gets a certain portion of what a CD sells for, because of packaging, and legalities and shit like that.

This way, if they get people to pay $5 for the MP3s, they may make as much as normal.

I'll be willing to throw down a couple bucks for it, I dont even really like them.

IIRC they make far less than $5 per album. Basically by the time it's said and done the artists make squat on the album sales. Courtney Love actually did a nice work-up on music industry math:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/featur...ove/print.html

anyone pick this up yet?

Listening now.

I'm trying to get it. Looks like their site is taking a beating this morning.

how does it compare to their last album?

WTF? I can't find a download link on their website.

1. http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/index3.html
2. Hit "PRE-ORDER" to the right of the big "DOWNLOAD" graphic.
3. Hit "View Basket" after the page refreshes.
4. Enter how much you want to pay for it, then press "Pay Now."
5. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

I'll also mention that I had trouble getting the site to kick over to the payment web site after pressing "Pay Now" in Firefox. IE went through fine.

I'd think just the goodwill alone will make them some good money.

I sure hope so, anyway.

I do not know how accurate this site is but I came across this:
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Remember when Radiohead announced last week that they would be releasing their seventh album, In Rainbows, via their official website and that fans could pay whatever they want (even nothing!) for the music? And then everyone from Madonna to Nine Inch Nails came out of the woodwork and announced they were also leaving their major label home to try unique methods of selling straight to the public?

Well, it turns out Radiohead mighta been scamming us in order to build enough hype around the album for it to get picked up by one of the major label the band appeared to be rallying against.

Bastards!

Turns out, many feel the quality of the downloads the band is offering on its site are…um…crappy. And, even worse, the band's managers made a statement that the you-choose-the-price downloads plan was just a promotional tool for the release of the CD.

Regarding the possible crappiness, on October 9, the day before the album became available for download, fans who ordered the album got an email from the band’s online store saying that "the album [would] come as a 48.4 MB ZIP file containing 10 x 160 [kilobits per second], DRM-free MP3s." This pissed off many fans because 1. all of Radiohead's other albums are available as MP3s encoded at the higher-quality 320 kilobits per second (the highest-possible compression rate in the format, though still not as good sounding as a CD), and 2. no one was told this until AFTER they paid for the service.

Then managers Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge mentioned in a recent interview about how the downloadable version of Rainbows figures into the larger plan of releasing a retail version in 2008.

"In November we have to start with the mass-market plans and get them under way," Hufford said.

"If we didn't believe that when people hear the music they will want to buy the CD, then we wouldn't do what we are doing," Edge added.

In other words, some fans feel the band purposely released a low quality version to fans for this go around, knowing full well they’d be releasing a better quality version in stores later on. This way, fans would have to re-buy it to get the best quality version, and when peer-to-peers got hold of it, they’d be trading inferior copies. All this might not be so bad if the band had been up front about it and described it as a chance for fans to hear the music early, in advance of the high quality CD version. But the impression some got was that this downloadable copy WAS the final, official, best quality version.

So is this kinda sneaky and capitalistic for a band who prides themselves on being a band of the people, a band of outsiders, not influenced by the evil music business, huh? or did everyone jump the gun and assume there wouldn't be a major label version, when the band never actually said that, per say?

But...if you paid nothing for it, then what do you have to complain about anyways?

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/pos...RadioScam.html