Radiohead- Choose your own price. (1 Viewer)

I tried searching but found nothing.

Radiohead is allowing fans to pick their own price for the new album "In Rainbows". The name your own price option is only for downloaded music. This along with Trent Reznor's shout to fans in Australia to "steal it", when it comes to NIN music, shows a major drift from record companies. Will the middle man ever be cut out? Hopefully!

This is interesting. I certainly admire their guts about standing up to the record company and doing things their way.

That said, I'm not a big fan of downloading music. I prefer to have my master copy that I can go back to at any time. Call me silly, but having everything on a harddrive is scary to me. I will most likely download a copy, but I'm going to lowball them on the cost because without a master copy, the value goes down rapidly for me. I would love to indulge in the full set, but $80 is a bit extreme for me.

I wish I could "choose" to pay $15 for an actual CD instead.

Given the choice between paying $1 (the approximate minimum price of the download) for a download and $82 for a physical copy of the CDs (paired with a vinyl copy I have no interest in) I'll choose to not get the new Radiohead album.

FINALLY! A new Radiohead album!

I'm so on this.

i don't get it, they are actually charging $82?

I read some where that a regular CD will be available in early 2008.

from radiohead website:

"DISCBOX
THIS CONSISTS OF THE NEW ALBUM, IN RAINBOWS, ON CD
AND ON 2 X 12 INCH HEAVYWEIGHT VINYL RECORDS.
A SECOND, ENHANCED CD CONTAINS MORE NEW SONGS, ALONG WITH DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS AND ARTWORK.
THE DISCBOX ALSO INCLUDES ARTWORK AND LYRIC BOOKLETS.
ALL ARE ENCASED IN A HARDBACK BOOK AND SLIPCASE.

THE ALBUM DOWNLOAD AUTOMATICALLY COMES WITH THIS PACK.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE FILE DIGITALLY FROM THE 10TH OCTOBER 2007."

and this includes shipping to anywhere.

Unless it's a bootleg or something that's impossible to get, I have no interest in downloading. That looks to be a very nice package but I could live without the records, booklets or book. I can appreciate that it's quite expensive to manufacture all that stuff on your own but how about a CD only option? Just to show some support for them trying to make it without a record company, I'd pay $25 or $30 for just the CD.

Unfortunately, I agree. I like Radiohead but I'm not spending $80 on one album.

I don't see any mention of what the format is. Wav? MP3? What bit rate?

i think you've got to look at this as an approved leak with a suggested donation. if you don't want to preview a download just wait til the cd is in stores in the new year as it would be without the download.

this is such a progressive, considerate and, frankly, cool experiment i just don't see a downside. i paid 8+dollars for my pre-order.

i think the format is mp3 and i'll be interested to see the bitrate they decide on. they should give choices but that would be another surprise.

..

Matthew got the point. It's an experiment. People have been complaining about cd prices and itunes DRM for years now, a band finally does something about it. As a first effort I think it's pretty good and I have preordered it just to show support for a market like this. A market where the artist gets a higher percentage of the profit. NIN is heading down this route after their contract is up. They look to charge about $4 per album offered at a variety of bitrates with option of ordering a cd as well.

...but the problems is that they are not offering an equal solution. It's either download a mystery bit-rate file for whatever you want to pay, or buy the album in a traditional format with a butt-load of extras (That most people don't need) for an inflated price.

I don't really want either. I want a CD that I can pay $10 for.

I totally agree and if anyone's got the balls to do it it's Radiohead.

Kudos to them for trying interesting ways of getting their music to people. Thom probably would have gone this route for his Eraser album, actually didn't he do something like this? Maybe not, anyway.

Bring it on boys!

I might bite on the download since I'm a fan and I typically rip my cds anyways for listening on my mp3 player. I would of preferred though, that they did what the Flaming Lips did with their concert DVD "UFOs At The Zoo" that included the MP3s on the disc, you just had to put it in your PC.

So I'm basically saying I would of preferred the new Radiohead to be a DVD release.

Ballsy...stupid...but ballsy. I think unfortunately Radiohead is going to get an up close and personal experience with the great human weakness known as greed.

For the record, I'd prefer the option to spend $12.99 (the price I usually pay for release-date CDs) on a disc. If download is going to be the only way to go (outside of having to shell out $82) I'd prefer it to be at the highest bit rate AAC (or MP3 at worst) or lossless somehow, like FLAC. Dave Matthews Band sells FLAC downloads as an option.

the choice isn't between cheap download or expensive box set. it's between authorized preview and/or cd release date 4 months from now. if this were done the traditional way they would have announced the album this week and you would be able to buy it early next year.

unless they never announce an official release - but that would be surprising in a lame way - radiohead surprise in a smart way.

as to whether they will be economically disappointed - this doesn't seem like a money grab. if you tried to custom order the manufacturing of a multi-vinyl/cd/booklet boxset and ship it overseas i think it woud be hard to make money asking $80.

plus people will be happy to pay for the download - after being so disrespected by the record companies this could generate fervent and numerous forumposts saying how great they are!

plus this points out the solution to the filesharing/theft problem plaguing the industry today - peer pressure. when someone announces on a forum they actually typed in $0 on the website (which apparently works) they are made fun of and dismissed as lame. no stronger power exists to change the minds and hearts of men (let alone young men).

i hope the record is good.

Absolutely. This experiment is great, but why not have a reasonably priced physical alternative. There are plenty of us who enjoy packaged media (CDs and DVDs). We just want a reasonable price ($8-$10). When they are in that range, we buy TONS of them.

There are probably only 2 bands I would pay $80 to get a packaged media alternative to a download. And Radiohead isn't one of them.

It's coming out in stores in January.

Where did you hear this? I have seen nothing concrete on this. If so, I download for super-cheap and then pick up the CD in January.