In case you haven't heard Radiohead has a new album out. Its supposedly totally awesome. And you can only buy it on their website. They have this really weird deal where you can pay any price you want. All you have to do is fill in a few basic things. Name, adress, age, country. The usual.

So, jump to it.

so like...1 cent?

I bought mine for $0.00

:D

so how are they screwing us over?

As far as I can tell they're not.

Unless you want to pay $80 for a "special edition" physical copy with a couple extra songs and some artwork.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'll download this after dinner.

They are lowering the value of music for other performers.

After "Hail to the Thief" they owed me a free album :P .


I'll take my free Radiohead where I can get it. WMD has a point too though.

Not at all. Everyone already steals music. This just gets them better PR and people to do the honorable thing and spend the $80 on their record.

I've never listened to Radiohead. Everyone hails them as more or less the saviors of the music industry, but I don't really have a desire to listen to them. I'll probably download this at some point, but really, they just don't strike my fancy.

Yet, I like Muse, who I understand is about as big of a Radiohead ripoff as can be. Funny.

I listened to the free album while grading papers last night. It was excellent, the best Radiohead since 2000's "Kid A."

Everyone already steals, so let's endorse it? Is that right? Listen, we're not talking about Napster here, we're talking about a major band giving away an entire album for free. Radiohead can afford to do that, but I can't. I have to make back production costs...etc. So if one of the biggest bands in the world is freely giving away their music, how exactly am I supposed to sell mine?

I don't think Muse and Radiohead are all that similar. I mean, the influence is there, but I wouldn't call Muse a rip-off at all.

Then I guess we shouldn't complain when we see $85 concert tickets, or when someone licenses their song to a car commercial.

If Radiohead was paying me money, I'd download their album. Otherwise, those lazy-eyed Euro pansies won't enter my personal airwaves.

But here's a legitimate question for any Radiohead junkies: back in 1995, they had a video for a song called (I think) "Just". It had some dude laying down on a sidewalk, with people walking by and wondering why he was doing that. The dialogue was displayed in subtitles. Everyone keeps asking him and he refuses to move. Finally he tells them WHY he's doing this...and suddenly everybody else is laying down on the sidewalk with him.

Supposedly, the band was supposed to reveal the WHY sometime in the future. Did they ever explain this? And if so, what was the pay-off?

It was to keep you awake at night.

Easy, because Radiohead does it doesn't mean that's the way of the world. For every Radiohead doing this there is still 100 million other bands out there still doing it the old fashioned way.

This is more of a PR stunt than it is a revolution in the music industry.

I agree with all you said there DK, especially the publicity stunt part. I just have a slight problem because bands like radiohead have already made their millions, so hey, they just give their music away. It's kind of like Bill Gates giving away software so that he can corner the market. I realize that Radiohead is not on that much of a mass-level, but the principal is the same.

And by the way, the normal consumer should be happy to legally get an album for free. My complaints are from the perspective of a struggling artist. Kind of like people saying "I hated WCW. They gave away PPV quality matches for free." Bullcrap, as a consumer you want to get the best product you can get for the lowest price. As an artist, I see where this could end up, and I don't like it.

And no Es, I will never complain if my concert tickets are selling for $85.

The concept appears to be working so far. The average price people are paying is $10. So for every cheapass out there like myself, there is at least one semi-crazy/crazy person paying $20. I may end up buying the album when it hits stores if I like it, a hard copy is always good.

Dude, I know exactly where you are coming from but believe me you have nothing to worry about at the end of the day.

Lets see how many others out there do what Radiohead is doing next? I'm guaranteeing that it won't be many.

Radiohead aren't the first to do this, either. Jonah Matranga will make you a compilation CD of his work, and you pick the price. I don't think free is an option on his site, though

No clue who Jonah Matranga is, which is why Radiohead doing this is a big deal.

I've had the chance to listen to it a couple times now and it's growing on me. No OK Computer at all, but hey, it was fucking free and still pretty good so I can't complain.

I'd put it right in the middle as far as Radiohead albums go, better than Pablo Honey, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief, but not as good as OK Computer, Kid A, or The Bends.

Enjoyed these tracks the most: Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, All I Need, House of Cards, and Videotape.

I don't really expect them ever to make anything as great as "Okay, Computer" again. "Kid A" was a strong contender, but time hasn't been as kind to it, IMHO.

I still say this is their best work since "Kid A" though, and maybe a bit better than "Pablo Honey."


You'll yell at me for this, but I still haven't picked up "The Bends."

He was the lead singer of FAR, considered to be a highly influential under the radar band, "is" onelinedrawing (along with his R2D2), and is part of Revolution Smile.

here

As an interesting counterpoint to the "Smaller artists can't pull this off" argument, Saul Williams is doing the same thing for his new album. It was announced yesterday. You can choose to pay five bucks to support the artist, or download it for free. Paying for it gets it in higher quality. Both come with a PDF of lyrics and album art.

Then again, he's been working extensively with Trent Reznor, so this isn't totally surprising. But it's still an interesting gamble to take.

It's actually better for lesser known artists, as they directly profit from the download instead of getting $.02 per CD sale. At least that's how I see it. WMD may correct me there.

Obviously, you get more profit per unit through direct sale than you do going through a label, but that's hardly the issue here. Everyone and their brother has a home studio now and puts out ten demos on the web everyday for free download. There are millions upon millions of faceless artists out there with their own little on-line web presence, selling to their own little fan-base. So how do you get fans to notice you in that big sea of music? Let's say you paid for your own production etc., and have over 20,000 bucks in your project. Makes you a little more reluctant to give the product away for free. Now let's say all the biggest bands in the world follow Radiohead and all ow fans to choose their own price. If I'm the guy who went in debt just recording my project, how am I gonna pay for promotion, etc? Answer: I can't compete. No way. The only people who will be able to work independatly will be the ones recording in their bedroom and giving their crap away for free.

Now to the issue of record deals. Typically indie labels are more artist friendly, more willing to try new ways of getting music out there, and give bigger profit margins to the artist. So, while I may be able to charge $10 all by myself for downloads, how much more will I be able to sale with the proper promotion behind me? The deal I am under now gives us $4 per every disk sold. The label paid 100% of the production cost, and is responsible for all the promotion. (Of course, our live gigs are basically a commercial for the disk) The only way the label can make it's money back is to sell the disk, so they have a concrete interest in pushing us. This is all stuff that we could never do by ourselves. We could have done a recording in my bedroom, but I doubt it comes out quite as good without the 30,000+, big time producer, big time percussionist...etc.

Let me make this clear - I have no problem with every artist in the world selling their product online. Reduced prices are reasonable considering the lower overhead, lack of cover art, and all that. However, when the "big time" artists start using their clout to undersell the indy artists, it's bad for everyone in the industry. Even the fan in the long run, cause it means less quality indie labels, worse quality indie music, and makes the good indie stuff even harder to find.