Radiohead- Choose your own price. (1 Viewer)

[KevinJ]

Maybe not in January but it is coming out in stores eventually.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

The first person to get a jury trial for file-sharing just lost her case and was ordered to pay $220,000 to six record companies for sharing 24 (!) songs. Most likely $0 of that will end up in the hands of the artists whose work she allegedly shared. :frowning:

Is the eventual CD release coming via a major label? If so, then the band would probably end up with more money from you paying them $3 directly for a download than from you buying the CD in a store for $15.

 

[matthewRaz]

they probably hate the lag between completing a new album and its proper release in stores especially when its sitting there on a computer anyway - then watching leaks from stolen files, poor quality, incomplete sources spread out to the world. plus they have to figure out the new record company/distribution thing as their deal with emi is over.

for a band whose records sound so good it will be interesting to see the download specs they choose. i'm sure it will be populist pleasing (not huge) but certainly not 128. i would guess 256 vbr (cuz thats what i use - and the higher itunes rate and amazons rate) and mp3 because of the universality.

if the boxset option disappears soon and the album is great watch ebay prices for one go up towards $1000?

 

[Ruz-El]

I read somewhere that they recorded this album without a label. The guitarist (can't remember his name was quoted saying "it's a relief to finish this, now we have to figure out what to do with it." or some such thing. This is a pretty neat alternative. In the same article they had a bit about how Trent Rezner said he wont re-sign when his label commitments are up, that he well exclusively sell his music online.

So this could be the start of the big shift that people have thought was going to happen. I'm all for it. The labels tend to tinker with and sit on great music due to it not being commercial enough. Neil Young, Fionna Apple and Aimee Mann (and many others I'm sure) have all had major issues with there labels in the past. It makes me wonder pretty much every time what an album was intended to sound like. Cutting out the middle man could result in great music.

 

[TravisR]

Me too as long as they have a reasonable option for buying a CD. In the case of this album, I have no problem with waiting until it's released to stores.

 

[matthewRaz]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/a7...bel-plans.html

 

[GuruAskew]

You don't have to pay the processing fee if you put "0.0" in for your price. It's only added on when money is involved so presumably if you wanted to pay a penny for it you'd have to pay the additional processing fee.

I don't feel bad about not paying for it. They'll get my money when I can go into a store and buy the CD, and I don't pay for all the CDs I rip onto iTunes.

 

[matthewRaz]

just got my e-mail info. i will be e-mailed an activation code tomorrow morning (uk time). the download will be a zip file with 160 kbps drm free mp3s.

so i'll rerip at 256 aac vbr when i get the cd with the discbox.

 

[GuruAskew]

The emails have gone out. I already listened to the whole thing and the email had been in my spam folder for about an hour at least so it's been available for a while by this point.

If you don't have yours check your spam filters.

 

[Brian Perry]

I think it would be fascinating to look at the results of this experiment to see how many downlaods were purchased at various price points, such as:

0.00 (greedy people, or those who feel that the download is a free preview that they will delete off their computers if they don't like it)

4.00 to 10.00 (those who attempt to discern the actual cost of production and factor in a decent profit for the artist)

over 10.00 (diehard fans who want to give something extra to Radiohead just out of appreciation)

Having said that, I think the reason it won't be a good test is that the download is not an uncompressed wav file.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Which is probably because they were expecting a lot of category 1 orders.

So what do people think of the music so far?

 

[Rob Gillespie]

comment removed due to bitching and moaning about 'bitching and moaning'

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Bingo. Personally, I can wait for the CD.

 

[todd stone]

wow, you guys complain about free.......

 

[GuruAskew]

I think it's a valid complaint when people are willing to pay for something better.

 

[bradhart]

the bitch and moan audio squad will complain about anything and everything. For those of us with less than golden ears and no desire to be pompous windbags who like to type a lot, the format and the price are as great as the album. I downloaded my early yesterday morning listened to the whole thing once burned it to disk took it along with me in truck for the day listened to it twice, put it in my ipod when i got home listened to it again and finally went back and paid for it. I gave $10, which is a hell of a lot more than they would make on a retail cd that neither I nor most people will ever be able to tell the difference between.

Someone in another forum said they saw a quote from Peter Buck of REM that he planned to download it and that he and Michael had toyed with this idea before. It would be great to see more bands do this. Of course Radiohead isn't the first, I know several small indie bands who have been doing downloads for donations for years, though Radiohead is doing a fr more polished job of it and will have a lot better tracking data.

 

[GuruAskew]

Well, it wasn't a full-blown studio album but 5 years ago they did release their "r.e.m.IX" album for free on their website.

 

[pricech4]

when is the release date for the disc? sorry, if posted before...

 

[Brian L]

Never having been a fan of Radiohead (actually, I have been on record as saying I HATED Radiohead), I was more than willing to preview the new record as a MP3 160K download as a means to see if my opinion would change. I paid exactly 0.00 pounds for it.

I am now on track 9 of 10, and I actually like it. In fact, I went back to the site to see what the real CD or LP would cost. OK, $80 for a super deluxe box? No, I don't like it THAT much!

But it is an interesting approach. Obviously they realize that 10 seconds after a real CD were released, it would be in the wild, and people would be illegally downloading. Why not just accept the fact, and legitimize it. Maybe they will end up selling a few more CD's to people like me that would have never done an illegal download or made a purchase based on a 30 second sample.

BTW, at least on PC speakers, it sounds pretty good. I will also burn a CD, which I am sure will sound pretty darn BAD as even 320K rips sound flawed when burned as wav's. If/when a sensibly priced CD or LP is available, I see myself buying this.....the music is that good.

Lastly, why anyone would not download an essentially free record is hard for me to understand, but to each his own. I think its a brilliant marketing strategy.

Brian

 

[Zen Butler]

I like the idea and apparently more artists are jumping on the bandwagon. I look at like this, for 4 Euros I purchased a 160 kbps preview of the upcoming cd. I am a fan and love the record. A nice departure from the last few slightly conceptual outings. No drawn out or reccurring themes. No, just 10 very solid, often beautiful songs.