Summary: Radiohead (my favorite band, for what it’s worth) is releasing their new album on Oct. 10, solely via the Internet. How much? As much as you’re willing to pay. 1 dollar? Fine! 20 dollars? Go for it!
Superfans (like me) can order a fully-loaded discbox set that includes 2 CDs, 2 vinyl LPs, and other assorted goodies for the rather high price of 40 pounds (or $81 - thanks pathetically weak dollar!). But since you can get the album basically for a nominal cost, I don’t see the harm in this.
All done without the involvement of a record label. Bands have been doing digital-only downloads for some time, but not on this scale, and certainly not with a name-your-own-price model, which seems aimed at curbing piracy. Could this represent the future of the music industry?
Doubtful. Something like this may work as a gimick, but long term and particularly if practiced widespread it loses any sort of sense of “I owe the extra money to this band.”
It also screws over unknown bands since they would have to be able to live for years getting only minimal payments while the big bands got all the large donations. And ultimately it would probably create a lot more drastic studio bands than there are today. With big names making more per unit sold than unknown bands, hiring writers to prop up the bands and keep the same name going for as long as possible becomes even more important than finding something new.
And you’ll always need big record labels. People are just too lazy and banal to want to find their own personal music. They need advertising to tell them what they’re supposed to be listening to this week.
I’ll pay $10-15 for an actual CD, with art and all. MP3’s aren’t really worth anything to me. I might give them a buck when I download it, but I would much rather them put out a physical CD you don’t have to pay eighty dollars for.
Might it work in a manner similar to the golden age of shareware back in the early-mid 90s? This is when you could download demo versions, which were still pretty good, of games like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3-D, and eventually Doom. I’m not a programmer but I’m under the impression that back then it didn’t take nearly as many people or as much time to create a decent game. Nowdays it takes a whole lot of people to make a game so we don’t see as much shareware.
Well, recording music is becoming easier and easier to do. Relatively speaking it doesn’t cost that much to get recording equipment and it isn’t that hard to use. Isn’t it possible that we’ll just see more independently produced music floating around the internet and some people might pay while others won’t?
I think established bands can pull this off but it would be hell on unknows. Hoping for a viral video of your music will catch on YouTube is a weird way to run an industry.
If it favors the big names, it might at least break the no-compromises stance of the media congloms, whose business model depends on big names. The harder it is to break in, the better things are for the major players. Not good for the industry as a whole, but perhaps some legal precedent could be established long-term to change that.
Perhaps they are using the Microsoft model - you download the music and pay $1, then they release software ($20) that allows you to actually hear the music and then finally you can pay for the patchs and upgrades that correct the musical mistakes “accidently” left in the original.
Perhaps you could see a model emerge where all the “unknowns” flock to indie labels who offer far more favorable contract terms, while big bands break away from major labels entirely and release their own content. It’s not like being on an indie label is a ticket to obscurity these days.
I realize, though, that this leaves a lot of middle ground, especially for bands who are on major labels but aren’t in the Radiohead/U2 tier of artists. Honestly, though, I feel a lot of these bands could thrive on an indie label, so long as it has national distribution. And plenty of them – Merge, Epitaph, Matador just to name a few – certainly do. I can find Arcade Fire at Best Buy just as easily as I can the latest Kanye West album.
So, anybody else download it this morning? What do you think? I’m liking it. I can hear some Sigur Ros, some Sonic Youth… it reminds me of Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac, but with a more unified sound and tone. Great stuff and I can’t wait to spin it a bunch more times.
For my part, I’m glad I paid zero dollars. Not because the music isn’t good (it is!), but because the MP3s turned out to be sub-CD-quality. I was planning to buy the CD release anyway (because I like having a physical package with the artwork and everything) and pay the band that way, but now everybody who shelled out 10 bucks or whatever for the digital version has to buy the CD too if they want the full-quality versions of the tracks. I bet some fans are up in arms this morning. Maybe not the smartest move on the band’s part.
An improvement over Hail to the Thief, IMHO, which had always left me a little cold. I’m hearing a renewed emphasis on melody and, dare I say it, they even get funky on a few tracks.
I think this is a beginning of a new wave of self-releases by big artists. Earlier this summer, Prince experimented with distributing CDs as free inserts in UK newspapers and rumour has it that Jamiroquai will be going the same route as Radiohead. I believe this presages a steep decline in the influence of major labels who will eventually be forced out of the production and distribution side of the business altogether. Of course, there will still be a role for them in marketing and promotion but I think their dominating role in the industry is coming to a well-deserved end.
Yeah, it doesn’t matter so much to me either-- I do the bulk of my listening through car speakers anyway (though I’ll be glad to have the full-quality CD to crank through my home system on occasion). But audio quality does matter to a lot of people, and I’ll bet a lot of fans paid up for the MP3s assuming they could skip the physical release entirely. Now if they care about having the highest quality audio, they have to double dip. I just think the band should have been upfront about what people were paying for.
Actually, it’s surprising to me that everyone wasn’t planning on buying the CD anyway, given that Radiohead releases are so well known for amazing artwork and liner note design. I guess the digital revolution really is here!
What makes you think that there will be a standard CD release? Radiohead is currently un-signed and it takes the manufacturing muscle of the big labels to mass-market a consumer CD. Currently, if you want a physical CD, you’ll have to spring for the 40 pound made-to-order discbox (I did, but then I’m a die-hard fan).
Also, I’d recommend you do an ABX test to determine just how good your hearing is when it comes to audio compression artifacts. For me, who admittedly has less-than-golden ears, 160 kbps MP3 is indistinguishable from the original CD when played on a quality audio system. Of course, your mileage may vary.
That’s true, there’s no official guarantee yet, but Pitchfork and other websites have reported that a conventional CD release is likely early next year. I’m jealous of your discbox! I really want that bonus music disc but $80 is just too steep. I hope it eventually becomes available separately.