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Radiohead’s next album, In Rainbows, is complete and coming out Oct. 10 in digital form before coming out as a double-CD/double-12-inch box on Dec. 3, a beat-the-leakers move that recalls both Stars’ three-months-early digital distribution of their album In Our Bedroom After The War and Matador Records’ Buy Early Get Now program. People who pony up the £40 ($81.18 as of this writing) for the deluxe edition (packaging above) will automatically have access to the download, but those who just want the files on their hard drive are being allowed to go the “pay what you like” route, an art-museumy move that inspired former Idolator guestblogger Eric Harvey to coin the should-be-used-by-everyone term “lossy leader.”
Apparently shoppers can pay as little as £0.01 ($0.02 thanks to the free-falling dollar) for the album, although there’s a £0.45 ($0.91) surcharge tacked on to every order. So how much will you pay for the download if you decide to go the physical-copy-free route–and if you can actually get through the site, which has been hit with huge lag times thanks to every Pitchfork devotee flooding it with requests?
Box.
Go ahead. Make fun of me.
Why would I want Radiohead’s new album again?
@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: I’m with you, but I’m going to hold out for American distribution first. In the meantime I’ll more than gladly throw around $5-$8 for the download.
Nothing. Then I’ll probably pay for the CD when I don’t have to pay for it as part of a bloated box set.
@KurticusMaximus: I love the smell of snark in the morning. It smells like…
…elitism.
@Audif Jackson Winters III: I love the pay however much you want principle because paying for digital music is basically charity at this point, but you are right to point out that being cool to the fans would be allowing them to mix and match the products that they order. That box seems cool but way expensive. I just want the vinyl. I’m paying 5 bucks for the download.
this also reminds me a bit of what kristin hersh did with the last 50 foot wave ep (appropriately entitled, “free music”, and which fucking rocked, btw). there was some sort of “virtual tip jar”, but the idea appeared to be that the value of getting the word out about the music (via whatever means) > whatever pittance she might get for the files or discs. she’s been writing a lot on her blog lately about these type of issues.
Actually Maura, you can put in 0.00 and get the download for free. I didn’t even have to put any CC info to get it.
What I’m really curious to see here is A: whether Radiohead will make sales figures from the download pre-sale public (and if those figures will include what prices people chose to pay for it), B: how those figures compare to previous first-week CD sales for Radiohead albums, and C: whether Billboard/SoundScan will count those sales and chart them.
I wonder whether the 40-quid discbox price is to make up for those people choosing to downloading for free or $1.
I’m with the above poster – download now for free, then buy the domestic version of the LP or CD when it comes out. I like Radiohead quite a bit, but not enough to pay $80 US, even with the swell packaging.
@Governmentnames:
NME has a thing on the chart’s question…
It’s not a big deal if they don’t make a ton of money off of album sales; they, like most big artists, rake it in on tour. Under contract, Radiohead obviously didn’t receive the entire $9.99 their album cost at Best Buy. Their label took a whole bunch, the stores took a bunch, distribution cost money, etc. Putting out the album this way lets them hold on to all of the money. And you can bet their next tour will be huge.
As someone on ILX just pointed out, Lefsetz has spoken.
I’m curious to know if the whole “they’ll be taking a financial hit by releasing it this way” holds any water. Many many big bands make next to nothing on records sold through major labels. Something like 25 cents to two dollars on each unit, and that’s AFTER recouping everything. So even if the average bloke only shells out $5 for this, it’s $5 they get to more or less keep (since they recorded it themselves, and don’t have to manufacture anything to host the files, there’s not much recoup). The obvious downside is that they don’t have a major label publicity machine behind this, so the sheer volume of records they’re able to move won’t be as much. I’m curious as to how that equation balances out. It could be a strategic loss on the band’s part as some people are suggesting, but I don’t think it’s as cut and dry as that.
I hope Radiohead will share the results of this experiment, hopefully not in code. Being Radiohead, they probably won’t.
I don’t think they lose anything on this. They don’t need a label’s promotion, and without a label leaching off their profits they’ll do quite well.
The idea of it being a concert promotion tool makes little sense — how many concertgoing kids are going to hear about Radiohead for the first time as a result of this?
This method reminds me of Mike Watt describing records as “flyers” for shows. Props go to the Radiohead and their courage, but I’m curious if their method would work for bands that had little commercial success and little means of getting public attention.
@Cam/ron: No need to be “curious” about that Cam/ron; the answer is “NO.”
This is both the most badass AND nerdiest bit of rock ‘n’ roll defiance…EVER.
@Cam/ron: @Catbirdseat: i was sort of talking about this issue in the earlier thread.
bands like Radiohead got big pre-internet; songs like ‘creep’ are, for better or worse, Modern Rock Radio staples- people will pay top dollar to scream along in whatever dank, beer stained sheds they end up playing next summer. they have a back catalogue and an audience who will stick with them.
this situation really does not bode well for new bands though. it reduces them to essentially relying on the patronage (which is arguably what happens now, but to a much lesser and indirect extent).
it reduces it all to some kind of weird free market auction. bands have to essentially outbid each other as the cheapest operation in town, like they’re contractors or something. not cool…
You know, no one has questioned what this “surcharge” is for. It’s interesting, because they don’t really have any overhead, except for maybe a dude or two to run the site for them.
Thinking out loud here – CDs in England can cost as low as 10 pounds or so. This means that royalties (if you get them) are usually about 10% or so of that list price – 1 pound. That’s pretty close to the surcharge. And because a whole wack of folks are going to pay much more than nothing for the CD, they will probably get much more in royalties than they would get through a record company. In other words, this will make Radiohead more money than they already do.
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