Radiohead release their seventh studio album today and it's only available online and you set your own price. Will you buy the album? Do you buy the idea?
Not only do I buy the idea, but I bought the album. Being the cynical/cautious type, I waited until I started hearing reports today of people getting their download codes and made sure people were NOT reporting getting their credit card info stolen. (Yes, I know the website is linked from Radiohead's main website. Yes, it's a secure transaction. Did I mention I'm cautious?)
Anyway, I made the purchase this morning off their website. (FYI, now when you make the purchase, you get the download link immediately on your purchase page, rather than having to wait to have it emailed to you.) A few minutes later I had the album .zip file on my computer and the tracks in my media player.
It's a little early to tell, but overall I think this is a GOOD album from Radiohead. There are a couple tracks that definitely stand out, to me, as tops on the album: "Faust Arp" and "Jigsaw Falling Into Place". I gave everything preliminary ratings, and there's only one track that probably won't make it into regular rotation for me ("Weird Fishes/Arpeggi").
I'm sure the tracks will be out and about in the interwebs in the near future – here's my contribution of my 2 favorite songs…check them out and see what you think.
As an aside – my credit card fraud department just called me up to make sure I had made the purchase for the album – it seems since the processing is done by a company overseas, they were a little suspicious of the purchase. I just told them I was testing their system. :-)
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October 10th, 2007 on 1:40 PM
Sounds like a good business model. Why do bands need labels nowadays, again?
Maybe a band I like will follow Radiohead's lead.
October 10th, 2007 on 1:56 PM
I wonder what the relative profit is?
If they average $9 per album download, and subtract the amount the service costs them … how does that compare to the cut they actually get when it is put in record stores? (Usually for $10-16, but more overhead).
Im really curious about it actually.
And would love to see more major artists jump on this model. Cause I would love to see the record industry adjust to the times and lose their stranglehold on music.
October 10th, 2007 on 2:18 PM
I edited the post above to include more info – the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the cost to "distribute" the album is $3.40. I haven't found what all this covers, but I expect even with this cost the band is seeing a lot more of the revenue than they would with a record label. I don't know exact figures but I hear the % artists get off an album is paltry compared to the record industry's cut – of course this is a sliding scale, with big-named bands getting a much larger cut than no-name artists. Still, I couldn't see this as being anywhere close to 40-50% of the gross revenue, which is what it sounds like the band might be getting from this deal.I'd love to see more artists follow up with this kind of model, too. It would be interesting to see if people continued to "stick it to the RIAA" and pay retail prices for digital downloads. I just hope the next band does a better job of presenting/marketing their album than Radiohead did. It seems a lot of people pre-ordered on faith that the album would be good. In order to get me to purchase from a less well-known band, I would require a setup with samples, maybe some free tracks to download, and definitely a less sketchy-looking site.
October 10th, 2007 on 2:32 PM
love me some radiohead. gonna get it today. :D
October 10th, 2007 on 5:19 PM
Actually, if you decide to pay 0.00, they won't even charge you the processing fee.
October 10th, 2007 on 5:24 PM
That's even cooler (and logical – if they're not charging your card, they shouldn't charge a transaction fee). I'm sure there are people taking them up on that, but I bet there's more people that are throwing at least a few bucks their way.
October 10th, 2007 on 5:26 PM
I believe someone from the band said that they didn't want people to take their word for it that the album was good and wanted to allow people to listen first and pay later. What a novel concept, LOL.<—-is sitting here thinking about all the money he wasted on crappy CDs
October 10th, 2007 on 5:34 PM
I wish they had made that more clear – I saw lots of QotD answers today that said "I'm not going to buy it because I have no idea how it sounds". If they knew that they could "buy" it for $0.00 and then re-buy it later for what they thought it was actually worth, I bet there'd be a lot more listeners checking it out…Actually, I have to say, overall, this is a great concept, but poor execution. If it was anyone but Radiohead (or NIN) who tried this in the manner they did, I think it would be a flop. I hope the next bands that do this learn from this and advertise the benefits of such a system, preferably on a more user-friendly website.
October 10th, 2007 on 5:41 PM
haha yeah, the website…looks like a car accident between an ATM and a kaleidescope.