Pay no more than ... 0.00
So, the Charlatans are giving away their next album for free and Radiohead are giving theirs away for 45p (which is an administration cost, apparently). Hark! Is that the sound of the record industry crumbling into the sea? Coming in the same year as the Mail On Sunday's Great We-Don't-Give-A-Fuck-About-Prince Prince Giveaway, this sort of wayward behaviour puts the "traditonal" retailers in a spin, and new bands, who can't necessarily afford to give their records (or downloads) away, secure in the knowledge that they'll recoup at the arenas and civic halls. As the Guardian are so fond of asking: should we be worried?
It seems to be a win-win for fans of the Charlatans or Radiohead. Alan McGee, who manages the Charlatans, has come up with the following cunning plan: the band will offer their forthcoming single You Cross My Path and subsequent album free as a download on the Xfm website. So, it's not a deal with a stupid old archaic record company, but it is a deal with a commercial radio station. (The band must get something in return for this fantastic traffic-booster for the website - lots of free advertising, and airplay, one assumes. So let's not for a moment imagine that McGee's doing it for the kids. He's a businessman, and a great marketeer, and he's come up with a good one this time. "Nobody buys CDs anyway," is his soundbite.) Like Prince, were the Charlatans to just release their next album, normally, it would hardly be front page news. Well, now it might well be. Ker-ching! Prince was the talk of the town when he turned up for his O2 gigs, and all thanks to the Daily Mail, who "sampled" thousands of new readers with the free-CD offer and racked up acres of coverage in rival newspapers. Ker-ching!
Radiohead are doing something slightly different. Their next album, In Rainbows is going for whatever fans wish to pay for it. The price is literally voluntary - you fill it in yourself on their website, honesty tin style. It's as much of a marketing ploy as McGee's but done more quietly, announced only through their site, and chimes with their no-logo noise-making. (There's this 45p admin cost, and of course, in order to download the album you have to enter your details, which I'm sure Radiohead won't be using to their own advantage. But beyond that, a brand new album for under 50p is a bargain. Especially if it's as good as their last album. They've had four years to make it.)
The big question is: does free music devalue music? I've had this debate many times over free DVDs with newspapers. Part of me thinks: great! Free films for all! Another part of me thinks: will the constant availability of gratis movies eventually devalue movies as a whole? Who's going to pay full price for one and cherish it if it might be bagged with next weekend's Sunday Telegraph? You might equally say: the record companies and video companies have been ripping us all off for years with their over-marked-up shiny discs - it's about time we had payback! I'm not thinking about the money, though, but the principle. Already we have a generation of kids who go to the cinema to talk to each other and send texts, with not an ounce of wonder or respect for the film they're nominally there to see. If they expect music and films to cost nothing, will they ever love them the way we did, and still do?
For the record: I've paid five pounds for my Radiohead album, out of courtesy for the creative energy invested in it. I look forward to downloading it with my special code on October 10. I wonder if they'll offer me a refund if I don't like it? Perhaps we should be able to download it first and pay afterwards, as if giving a tip in a restaurant for good service. Frankly, I'd pay full price for the next Radiohead album without seeing or hearing it first. Radiohead have earned that kind of loyalty from me.
Whatever next though?
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:03 AM
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52 Comments:
As much I like Radiohead, this 'pay as much as you like' deal (along with the Prince and Charlatans giveaways mentioned) is nothing but harmful to lesser known or unsigned bands.
Radiohead have the clout to be able to give their album away and are obviously no longer in the music industry to make money, but a lot of musicians are, and a lot are struggling.
"The record companies... have been ripping us all off for years with their over-marked-up shiny discs".
Well yes, this may be true, but at the same time you have to realise that some of the money you pay for a CD goes towards the band.
This switch to giving music away free, like badges on the front of 2000AD, means that the established bands stay established and the lesser known will remain lesser known - especially if a switch in culture means they can no longer charge people for their albums.
Making music for the art of it alone is what every musician should aspire to, but it's hard to continue to do this if you can't afford to eat.
This is dangerous for music. Who wants to live in a world without new musicians coming through on a regular basis?
I know there's an argument about bands now being able to move away from evil clutch of record companies, but (sad to say) most bands need the labels as much as the labels need the bands.
Or am I being too cynical?
both radiohead & the charlatans can afford to do it, though, can't they? Very noticeable that it's older, well-established (& in the case of Prince & the Charlatans, as you rightly point out, somewhat passe...) acts who are doing this. People just starting out, however, have to make some money one way or another, & there's not much in gigs in the upstairs rooms of pubs or t-shirt sales, is there? The irony is, I might feel more inclined to pay for Radiohead... yet I can't help thinking they don't really need it.
Indeed. I worked for a few years at the bottom end of the music industry, and the amount of free records and CDs that landed on my desk meant I had very little respect for the value of music any more. Not many of those freebies would be played more than once, even fewer ended up being cherished. When I left that job, I got my love of music back; once again going to a shop and buying stuff I wanted to hear.
This pay-what-you-want thing is an idea, I think, that suits a band like Radiohead, but I have difficulty seeing it working for many other bands. A devoted fan base which will likely buy the £40 box, even those that don't will be willing to pay close to a regular price for the download. Normally, I have very few qualms about downloading an album to see if I like it. But with the Radiohead album, when giving the chance to be a cheapskate, I chose not to be. This wouldn't be the case with many other bands, though.
Like you say about Prince and the Charlatans, it's a good way to drum up some interest, but I just can't see this sort of thing working with a smaller band with less passionate fans.
Anyway, one million downloads is nearly half a million quid's worth of 45 pences.
Craig
I feel uneasy about this as well, but I wonder to what extent people are really going to change their musical tastes on the basis of what's free and what's not? Music isn't a market in the same way as say white goods - if I wanted a BigElectricCo fridge for £500 and there was a similar one from FreeElectricCo for admin costs only, I'd be mad not to go for the latter. But you could post a free copy of the new Coldplay CD through my door and at best I'd use it as a drinks coaster - I certainly wouldn't play it. And just because I can get the Radiohead album for free wouldn't put me off paying for music by other artists - I'm thinking more along the lines of "great, I've saved some cash there, I can splurge on another cd/download". But maybe I'm the odd one out there?
It would be interesting to see what the average price paid for the Radiohead album is. Good on you for paying up, Andrew. I was wondering if I'd be the only "fool" to stump up but perhaps Radiohead have well placed faith in the integrity of their audience!
Well at least they actually did it, rather than just going on about the fact that they will do. At some point. No. Really. I don't want your money. etc
Rather like George Michael endlessly does...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3499534.stm
All the best,
iamnotthebeatles
http://www.iamnotthebeatles.com
If you haven't clicked on iamnotthebeatles.com before, have a look. It's worth reading "The Rules" before you launch into the first entry, as it makes no sense otherwise. and the rules are what make it so compelling.
Some good points, well made, thus far on the issue of free music. I know that Radiohead don't need my money, but I do belive in artists profiting from their work, and whether you're a struggling troubadour, or David Gilmour, the songs you write and record are your intellectual property and your pensin and you should receive royalties and percentages when those songs are bought or played. My royalties come from scripts and books I have written, and although I believe I should be recompensed if either are bought or reprinted/reshown, I am also a great fan of my books being lent or passed on, as it spreads the word, and may lead to a further sale at a later date. You have to make these kinds of calculations if your income is based on creating things. (I don't use that description in any grand way, it's just what it is.)
I know your blog is free, Andrew, but would you give your books away online for as much as the reader is willing to pay for it?
As an old-school CD collector, I won't feel I 'own' the new Charlatans album unless it appears on the shelf with the rest of them. Yes I can burn it on a WH Smiths CD-R, but for me it is not the same. Alan McGee is wrong about the extinction of CD buyers. Regards, Roger
No need, Chris. Where Did It All Go Right? and Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now are both available, "used", on Amazon for 1p. That's one pence (plus P+P). If anyone's willing to pay more for them, they can! They're also available at a variety of other prices, up to and including the actual retail price. It depends how much you want an uncracked spine.
That's Me In The Corner is also down to four quid. I like the fact that you can buy it "as new" for 5.45 from one seller, who says, "Very good condition, only read the first 100 pages." Ouch!
I am not as rich as Radiohead. Also, unlike a band, I can't make my money by playing gigs. If I appear anywhere to talk about my books, I never get paid to do so. it's promo. I'm more than happy to do it, as many here will confirm, but it's not a way of making money. Let's be brutal, writing books is not a big money spinner, unless you sell hundreds of thousands of copies and sell the film rights. (Nobody wants the film rights to my books!)
So the answer is: no, I wouldn't adopt the "honesty tin" approach unless someone at my publisher told me they could get loads of publicity for me by being the first author to do it! (However, I continue to support the lending of my books, for which I receive 0.00p.)
New bands are coming through though, on things like MySpace, having given up going down traditional routes - or is just the modern way?
The music industry can only blame itself for not keeping up.
All our habits have changed now.
Personally, I only buy CDs these days if they're not downloadable from itunes. Some things are not and will never be there. But now all my music is on my ipod, I've put all my CDs away and got rid of my CD player. I have a ton of vinyl and it's now all in the attic. I play all my music through my ipod, which holds 14,000 songs and counting. I'm very happy with this, but it means sadly I never go into HMV or Virgin unless it's for DVDs. Otherwise it all comes off Amazon or Play.com or Trunk, etc.
This is the 21st century.
At least they bothered to read 100 pages of it! Maybe they just have short span of attenti...oh look, a seagull!
I used to work as a journalist, for a leading Catholic newspaper (despite not being Catholic or religious in any way), and was amazed how many people submitted articles for free - which would get published - completely undermining my job. I kind of understand that there's not much money to be made in writing.
Why people would think to sell a book on Amazon for 1p amazes me. Surely taking it to your local charity shop is more beneficial than making 1p profit for yourself. Maybe Radiohead could have done the same with their album?
Rumour has it Radiohead are switching Blackpool lights off this year.
Also, five-centres - No band has ever made it big from Myspace alone, no matter what the record companies tell you. It may be a way for bands to showcase themselves, but I doubt anyone has been signed solely from it.
Didn't Stephen King try the honesty box publishing model a few years ago with that downloadable novel that was available in PDF chapters? The deal was: if enough people kept paying, he kept writing. IIRC, they didn't, so he didn't.
At the time I remember feeling quite aggrieved that although he was trying to spin it as a radical new approach to publishing, it was actually just some rich old bastard who wanted to get even richer by cutting out the middlemen so that he could trouser all the lolly himself. Which in turn would mean that publishers would have less money to invest in books that weren't celeb-driven TV spin-offs etc.
On the other hand, I can't help feeling a bit more like Radiohead are genuinely sticking it to the man, or at least that that's their motivation anyway. Whereas the Charlatans... Well, who the hell was ever going to pay for a new Charlatans album anyway?
I was impressed by an article in The Word last year about an American chap who suggested that old material should be distributed cheaply. He used the example of Led Zep selling their old albums for $1 each. I though that was an ideal model as record companies could sell to millions of people previously ambivalent towards Led Zep and use the dough to release new artists' material. It strikes me that the music biz is polarised - the very very rich and the struggling artist. It's a shame there aren't more bands whose members earn £50k pa who keep on going for love and making a decent living rather than having the megarich and the megapoor.
"Nobody buys CDs anyway," says Alan Mcgee.
that should be - nobody buys HIS bands' Cds - hence Poptones going bust when he couldn't get licensing deals with majors for his bands anymore, and he couldn't keep bankrolling the label.
Being a super Radiohead nerd I had already shelled out £40 for the discbox by half twelve on Monday morning without as much as batting an eyelid. What Radiohead done is fairly clever as 1) Had they got a record deal and released the record on iTunes 30 cents from a 99 cents download goes to Apple and 70 cents to the record label of which around 8 to 14 cents goes to the artist. Assuming Radiohead would be getting a 14 cents deal from a major label meaning for everyone paying more than $1.41 they are making more than they normally would. Secondly, like the Crimea giving their album away for free this year (they have had 60,000 people download it now, surely they will reap the benefit of this when they tour next in T-shirt / ticket sales) this will be the future of the record industry. If you can get people to come to a show and maybe 10% of them buy some merchandise you’ll make more then simply getting slightly under a pound every time you sell a record. Madonna is looking to do a deal based more on her tour then records with LiveNation and it’s one of the things that allowed EMI to throw so much money at Robbie Williams. While Raidohead have a huge fanbase you have to consider that the 15-19 demographic were at most 12 when Kid A was released (seven years ago today) and they are the huge group that are now going to concerts regularly. An album that costs next to nothing is only going to, ultimately, end up with more people (some born the year the likes of Andrew were covering the band’s embryonic steps in Oxford) going to their gigs. Thirdly what Radiohead have done is authorise the leak of their own album two months early (like most albums do nowadays). Like with the no doubt deliberate leak of HTTT in it’s unmastered format and the slow drip of the Kid A / Amnesiac tracks on to the internet in those pre broadband days where they dripped onto the internet (and made my mother wonder why I was tying the phone line up for two hours a night.) they are ultimately retaining an element of control of the album and convince some people who wouldn’t buy the record having heard the leak to pay for it and turn it into a news event. In this month’s Q John Harris calls them the template for a 21st century rock band, this only confirms that.
Given that I still listen to 6Music I assume that I'm going to be subjected to the new Radiohead album. Is there any way that I can put a negative amount on the download site and get some sort of compensation for the pain that it's likely to cause me?
Maybe someone will buy the film rights to your books, Andrew, who would you want to play you in the movie of your life?
Alan McGee may have been overstating the no one buys CDs thing, I certainly do, as shown by the ever growing pile of them next to the CDcase in my living room.
I do download too, but when I do I miss the artwork, the details like who played what, who got name checked on the 'thanks to' list and other features of a CD booklet. Siouxsie's latest one is worth it for the photo of her alone!
I'm quite surprised by Radiohead's decision, purely because they have always seemed to be a band who took time to think about their album artwork and that art enhanced the musical experience.
In the music genre I tend to inhabit (that's goth for those who don't know me), a free CD with a selection of bands songs on a magazine often introduces me to new artistsw which I then go on to buy.
So perhaps limited amount of free music can be beneficial to all, but I don't think Radiohead and the Charlatans decisions represent a vision of the near future.
The relative wealth of the band is neither here nor there. The value of your creative writing endeavours is no higher than the creative recording efforts of Radiohead, simply because your bank balance is lower than theirs. The important thing is that the creator should have control of their work - if they want to give it away for free, that's fine. If on the other hand they want to make money from it, that's fine too. And of course, the consumer can exercise their right not to buy if the price is too high.
My only qualm with what you say, Andrew, is that you say you would "pay full price for the next Radiohead album without seeing or hearing it first". That's great, and I'm sure Radiohead value the support of fans such as you. But the band took many months to record their album, agonised over individual words and notes in much the same way that you agonised over your writing (no doubt). In a world where you need to spend three quid to get a coffee from Starbucks, the question really has to be whether five pounds really can be considered paying full value.
Dylan, you can, if you prefer, pay 40 quid and pre-order the full version of Radiohead's album, which comes with a second disc of extra tracks, as well as the requisite cardboard. My guess is that most dieheard fans will be happy to pay this. I have decided that five quid, which goes to the band, is plenty, as I will no doubt pay the 40 quid in December when the package is released. That's 45 quid for the privilege of hearing the album next week. Of the three pounds you pay for a coffee, how much goes to the coffee grower? As far as I can see, with no record company, whatever you pay for the Radiohead album goes to Radiohead (not literally to just the bandmembers, but to their organisation). That seems fair to me. Apparently, people are already boasting about paying nothing for the album on various message boards.
Dylan - "The important thing is that the creator should have control of their work - if they want to give it away for free, that's fine. If on the other hand they want to make money from it, that's fine too."
My point is that the people who give it away for free only serve to make it harder for those who choose to make money from it.
It's not The Klaxons or Cold War Kids giving away their music, is it? It's big name acts like Radiohead and Prince - acts who can afford to do this and generate more publicity for themselves.
Any act looking to get signed now might as well give up if this is the "template of 21st Century rock", no matter how good they may be.
Some people will clearly pay nothing, and Radiohead know that. They're also probably the people who would have downloaded it for nothing from illegal peer-to-peer sites, so perhaps it's a case of nothing-ventured, nothing-gained.
People often fail to understand the costs of recording an album - it's not like sitting in your bedroom or office and writing a book (although there are examples of bands doing that, clearly). With studio time and production costs (I'm assuming Nigel Godrich isn't on a profit share), there are significant additional costs involved in the process - and that needs to be recognised.
As for the whole record company thing, well it's not my place to defend them. All I'll say is that for your book, you presumably went with a big publishing house rather than self-publishing because you wanted to make use of their considerable marketing machine? Radiohead are in the fortunate position of being one of the world's largest bands with a dedicated fanbase who'll find whatever they do. Sadly not all bands are so lucky.
I agree with you Chris - I think creative work of all kinds has an implicit value, and it's sad to see that undermined. But you can't argue with the right of artists to make free choices with the work they create, I guess.
I'm not actually sure what - if anything - we're arguing about, Dylan. I only compared myself to a band because we both rely on royalties. I worked as a music jouranlist for years and spent a lot of time with bands in recording studios - I know how much time and expense goes into making an album, although those costs have come down for those with smaller budgets with the availability of digital technology.
(By the way, I am a fan of Radiohead in the sense that I would buy their album sight-unseen/unheard - that's years' worth of trust - but I'm not that much of a fan that I'd go searching for tracks leaked onto the Internet before they're commercially available.)
I didn't "choose" my publisher. I'd written some sample chapters of WDIAGR for my own pleasure in EastEnders downtime, and a new editor started at Ebury, who approached my agent. She arranged a meeting, I gave him my sample chapters and a deal was subsequently struck. Between them and the bookseller, they take about 90% of the cover price for their contribution, but that's the deal you make. I would never have got round to self-publishing, because as a self-employed writer, I don't have time to write whole books with no money forthcoming. I have to take on work that pays for food. With the modest advance I got from Ebury, I was able to set some time aside and finish the book. Certainly I have benefitted from their machinery, but they get their cut. Having said that, they spend very little on advertising my books (a single print ad in the Guide for my first one, for instance), so I'm a pretty cheap date.
I agree with you that smaller bands won't benefit from Radiohead's radical approach, but then I never said anything to the contrary. My worry, to restate it, is that music loses its value if it's free.
Sorry, Andrew, we're not arguing at all - just discussing a really interesting point. And I completely agree with both you and Chris, and your mutual assertion that music loses its value if it's free. I respect anyone who a) produces creative work, and b) is good enough at it to make any kind of living. I used to do it myself, but now content myself with writing for the sheer love of writing (www.britoutofwater.com if you want to have a look) while the office job pays the bills.
I think your blog's great, by the way. I've lurked on here for absolute ages, and today's the first time I've posted a comment...nice to be on board.
Dylan
While I have sympathy for any smaller bands that might suffer initially the power to distribute will eventually come to them. The DIY Indie ethos of punk managed OK without the power of the internet and so on.
You can't make a TV show, a book or a film on your own but you can produce and distribute music on your own.
The record companies have had this coming for years and they did next to nothing. Charging people £10 for an album half full of filler was only ever going to come back to haunt them and this is what they get (when they mess with us!)
If the record companies want to make money they'll have to go down the road of the tour as the aspect to make both them and the artist money. (an article on this can be found at http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9735
I don't agree with that at all I'm afraid Mitchell. How can you make a piece of music with a full orchestral backing 'on your own'?
Why can't you make a film 'on your own' with just a camera and youtube?
Would The Beatles have made the music they did if they were forced to constantly tour, rather than spend so much time in the studio?
"Charging people £10 for an album half full of filler" - you've been buying the wrong albums mate!
Also, welcome aboard Dylan...
Oh, and "The DIY Indie ethos of punk managed OK without the power of the internet and so on."
It still relied on distribution deals struck with the major labels.
I haven’t been buying the albums full of filler, fans of RHCP, Scissor Sisters, Killers and so on have been. Since 2003/4 there has been a massive downturn in the number of albums which stick out as having been lovingly created as album and iTunes and single downloads are adding the problem caused initially by the extra recording time available on CD reducing quality. Now a band, especially with a second album are encouraged to record it quickly and get it out so it ends up having a few singles and inferior material on it and very much to my ears and attitude of ‘will this do?’ They’ve been getting away with that for too long and something like this will only make things better in my opinion by having less music by committee.
Yes you can make a movie on YouTube that can be seen by people but the technology isn’t quite up there with the way that music can ferret it it’s way around the world. A YouTube video can be picked up by the media in the same way that an MP3 can but a YouTube can’t develop a groundswell in the same way. Any talent on YouTube will inevitable be pulled into the movie making business. It’s no doubt coming but there has yet to be a Lilly Allen / Arctic Monkeys style new director from YouTube because they’d have to release a film in the normal manner to get noticed.
I don’t really think that The Beatles can be held up to compared to anything really, such a one-off in the history of popular music . It’s not like they were making much money from their publishing deals in 1967 anyway is it. As for the orchestra, who dubs an orchestra on their debut work? It’s something that record companies afford to artists that have earned it.
And not every one of those indie labels relied on the majors, especially at inception.
Yes, welcome aboard, Dylan - I've read your blog, very interesting. I haven't been to New York since 1998 but your blog brought it right back.
Chris, I'm no expert, but can't you make an orchestra sound without employing an orchestra these days? That's what the technological revolution in the 80s was all about. I don't think record companies are inherently evil, but they did sit on their hands during the first stirrings of the download revolution, arrogantly assuming we'd all still want to buy bits of plastic and metal. Record companies had a reprieve in the 80s with CD, as it meant that everybody bought their record collections again. I know I did. This time though, they didn't own the rights to the carrier - computer companies did - hence their panic.
A huge chunk of the money made from consumers has been to cover manufacture and distribution and packaging. These are now less important. That should be empowering to artists, which is something I think we all hold dear. At least without a record company breathing down your neck, demanding recompense for their advance, you're not forced to make an album as weak and disappointing as The Rakes, say, who showed so much promise.
And Mitchell's right, the earliest independent labels found an alternative to major label distribution networks, hence independent.
Before YouTube, there was nowhere you could make a film and show it, without it being in some way filtered first by a professional body. It might not make you famous, but your stuff is out there, as are the tracks on MySpace. It depends why you make your music/films. If it's to get famous, you're still swimming in a big pond (even bigger in fact), but if it's to get your music heard/film seen, you're in a better position.
I don't think we should compare Radiohead to Prince. Only Radiohead benefit from their freebie record. With Prince, he shared the benefit with the Mail On Sunday.
Going back to the 'Zep for a quid' line, the late-lamented Fopp sold back catalogue CD's for a fiver, and I bought loads. Much more sensible than selling not-very-many through chains like Virgin and HMV at £15 a pop.
I find it quite funny that Mitchell has a go at the record companies for encouraging bands to record in a hurry, which produces a 'will this do' attitude, whilst also praising the the DIY indie ethos of punk, which actually had a very 'that will do' attitude. Is there a difference there? I'm not sure.
Record companies aren't 'getting away' with anything, they are selling records, not all of which have to be high art. If people are buying inferior Red Hot Chili Peppers albums, it's because the Red Hot Chili Peppers are making inferior music. If people are buying Paris Hilton albums, that's their own choice too.
Look at the Stone Roses. They took years and years to record their second album, and it was rubbish (in my opinion). Was the record company to blame for giving them too much time?
Andrew says "can't you make an orchestra sound without employing an orchestra these days?"
Of course you can, but it won't sound as good. I don't like the impliance that new music is just limited to two guitars, bass and drums unless your record company says ok to more. It seems a pretty narrow minded view of what music is/can be.
Who is to say that people have 'earned' the right to make music with orchestration? Plenty of musicians have used orchestration on their debut albums. Rufus Wainwright for one.
Mitchell says "Any talent on YouTube will inevitable be pulled into the movie making business. It’s no doubt coming but there has yet to be a Lilly Allen / Arctic Monkeys style new director from YouTube because they’d have to release a film in the normal manner to get noticed."
But surely the Arctic Monkeys and Lilly Allen were noticed by the general public because they too were 'released in the normal way'? By record companies - no matter if they were 'noticed' on Myspace first.
I can think of many, many records released since 2003/4 (the year of Radiohead's last release by any chance?) that have sounded lovingly crafted as albums - anything by The Flaming Lips, for starters.
If an artist doesn't want to put 100% into their music, that's their choice. Just as it is Radiohead's to offer their music for free.
Andrew also says "It depends why you make your music/films. If it's to get famous, you're still swimming in a big pond...but if it's to get your music heard/film seen, you're in a better position."
If you're looking for a career then it is different again. You can be famous and still be poor (no, really, you can).
Incidentally, I still buy CD's, as well as downloading songs. I prefer the tangible quality of a CD, rather than a CDR without artwork.
An interesting stream of debate and views on ownership. Perhaps the point Andrew made has been re-directed, but I suspect many readers of this blog are in their 30's onwards and we have a different take on life.
We remember the joy (as per Andrew's books) of clutching our pound notes and rushing to the record shop to buy 'the album' and then listening to it non stop for days. We remember that in a cinema you are supposed to shut up and watch the bloody film. We remember that you could actually be out of contact for a few hours and not have the pressure of "I sent you a text an hour ago and you haven't replied!!!". We remember life before video games and we probably read books. Most of us choose to vote and have an interest in politics. We generally can get through a sentance without using the word 'like' too many times. We seems to enjoy debate at a sensible level. etc etc
But them young 'uns have a diferent approach and we should not measure our standards and upbringing against modern youth who have a different approach. They tend to think it is clever to download for free and enjoy the challenge to use the technology available to down loads film and music to their heart's content. Paying for it would seem very strange! (I have munchkins at college and Uni) and this is the view I hear from their friends and occasionally from them.
Modern culture seems to be for the moment and immediate gratification with insufficient depth of thought for anything.
I'm probably a grumpy old git but I think this giveaway stuff won't work and Andrew's fiver will not be the norm!!!
AnonoNick
I fear you're right Nick. Gone are the days of going into a record shop and buying an album purely because you liked the sleeve design!
I agree with Chris, I think, that the reason albums are disappointing tends to be because the artist has produced disappointing material. The Rakes produced a bad album (if they did - I haven't heard it) not because they had a record company breathing down their neck, but because - and this will hurt - they're just not good enough. It's in no-one's interest to release weak material - not the record company's, not the artist's and not the retailers. Sometimes, sadly, it's just the best a band is capable of in the moment.
I bought plenty of singles when I was younger that I'd never heard. Sometimes a good review in the NME, or the fact that I liked their last single would do it. And sometimes the sleeve! (I became something of a 4AD completist at college on the basis of how beautiful the packaging was. Luckily, I liked the music too for the most part. Imagine that, though, eh kids?)
Too much choice nowadays, perhaps?
Absolutely. I bought the first Ultra Vivid Scene album on 4AD purely because it had one of the most astoundingly wonderful covers I had ever seen. Luckily, it was utterly fabulous too.
I think there’s a big difference between the artist choosing if something will do and a record company tapping it’s wrist watch. The big record companies, like Andrew said, sold old records back to a generation of music fans and with software that imposed DRM on music that you had already bought once tried to get away with again and kicked up a fuss when they realised that people weren’t going to put up with it. I really can’t see how people have any sympathy what is a bad business model which they’ve been getting away with and they’ve had plenty of time to get their house in order on. They tried to get away with things like pricing 99 cents songs in the US for the same in Europe and then again 99p in the UK, they re-issue albums a couple of months after the first release with bonus tracks, most artist end up having the same single re-issued within a 18 month period and so on.
Was a record company to blame for The Second Coming? Yes, without the wrangling they had they’d have put out what they had in 1991/2, Plenty of music is recorded without guitars and drums in bedrooms across the world, the whole grime scene isn’t dependent on the standard four person band make up. The example of Rufus ‘son of two musicians’ Wainwright’s debut is a bizarre one as well.
But the Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen had been noticed by more than people than your average band signed in the usual way beforehand. The Darkness, Arctic Monkeys and Enter Shakiri all sold out The Astoria without a record deal. On signing one AM and Lilly Allen become two of the biggest selling artists of 2006 but let’s not forget that Domino records employed little more than 50 people at the time they had a number one album (Franz Ferdinand’s 2nd) and a number one single (“I Bet You Look….”)
I can think of plenty of records from 2003/4 onwards that sound like an album in the way that ‘classic albums’ do. HTTT isn’t one (recorded too quickly, the bands fault though this time and overlong) nor is the last disjointed Flaming Lips album; that wasn’t my point. It was that dozens of bands since then have shifted albums which are full of filler and not listened to by the more casual music fan when you can just listen to the singles over and over; I don’t really want to name names but in my opinion the classic example of this is the first Killers’ album, four fantastic singles and a massive selling album with some awful filler on it. I could give plenty of examples of other albums that have done fabulously well despite being not very consistent across the whole album. Something I’ve written about on here before and elsewhere.
No-one is saying the artist aren’t putting the effort in it’s a combination of them not being talented enough and record company pressure that means we don’t see a raft of releases like LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver that feel like albums not a hodge podge of three singles and filler more in common with the way that albums were used pre-Beatles.
and it's perfectly possible to be under 25 and to want to be a completest for artist's singles and so on but when you have the hideous Now! series and "The Best Guitar songs from Radio's 1 and 2's play lists over the past three months and some randomly chosen Jesus and Mary Chain singles on the 2nd CD" compilations whose fault is it that 'the kids' know the price of everything and the value of nothing?
It also seems odd that a band is genuinely trying to fuck the big companies (they are, check their interviews from the past 12 months when the EMI deal was running out)and allow people to download their album for absolutely nothing and people are complaining?
All the record companies wanna do is {Bang!} {Bang!} {Bang!} {Bang!} and a {Click} {Ching} and take your money
Mitchell, it's not about Radiohead trying to fuck the big companies - it's about wanting to do something their own way, and knowing that they're powerful enough to plough their own furrow. And they're not saying "pay nothing" - they're saying "pay what you think it's worth". There's a big difference.
The fact remains that if people perceive that they have a god-given right to music and that it should all be free, there will be some artists who continue to write and record as much as they already do, and there will be others who decide to give up and go work in Greggs The Bakers instead. If that means the world loses a Thom Yorke of the future, I think that's a real shame. And we'll have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Offering free downloads through the website of a Commercial Radio station is an interesting ploy. I suppose Xfm would be encouraged to play the band's tracks on steady roptation, how much is paid each time a track is played on the radio these days? I realise that it would take a hell of a lot of plays to make up for the loss in revenue ususally generated by Percy Punter going into his local Fopp or Andy's, but it's one way of making money. Alan McGee seemed in suitably grumpy form on Front Row last night.
For all the similarities between Radiohead's action and that of Alan McGee/Charlatans, I think they're coming from two quite different places. I agree that as far as Radiohead go, this feels like an statement by them to the record company (with whom they presumably have an ambivalent relationship) that they, the band, can do what they like. Which must feel great, and is a bit more impressive than writing 'slave' on your cheek in biro.
Alan McGee's stunt seems a bit more like a damp squib of an attempt to resurrect the Charlatans (who I for one would have been quite happy to let lie) in a 'spirit of the zeitgeist' fashion. You couldn't give their stuff away to me if it came free with Sugar Puffs. But I'll pitch in a few bob for Radiohead.
Forty quid seems a lot for the 'full product', and I'm sure they'll sell bucket loads of those which will help subsidise the 'pay what you want scheme'. It's generated an awful lot of publicity which can't be bad for sales either. So all round everyone wins..
The network security cynic in me was half expecting a follow-up headline:-
"Thousands of credit card numbers harvested in Radiohead 'fake plastic' scam"...
Did Radiohead ever make more than 45p on the sale of a CD? Not much more I'd guess. And as Valentine Suicide says (I'm paraphrasing), at the culmination of this brilliant marketing campaign they'll be fleecing shitloads of their huge number of hardcore fans for the £40 set. Because for all their zeitgeist-surfing post-music shtick, a large proportion of their fanbase are distinctly 20th Century. In other words Radiohead are certainly not giving anything away.
And of course they can only do what they're doing because the full clout of a once very big record company marketed their (very good) music to a huge number of Americans. It's not as if there isn't lots of very good music that doesn't get heard and bought by a huge number of Americans.
It's hardly a secret that record companies sometimes promote their acts as having been an internet phenomenon. It makes an act sound all modern and that, and in touch with Ver Kids. It makes it sound like no sordid marketing or manufacturing went on. But it always makes me wonder why these acts ever signed to a label at all. Because they always seem to have done by the time I hear them on the radio.
None of which is to defend record companies.
And by the way (and no disrespect to anyone here but) I love it when people say things like, "This is the 21st Century." In 2050 when at least 98% of every mp3 file currently in existence will have gone and the iPod will look like something Nipper would wear, it'll seem pretty ridiculous. That's if anything written in this decade is still in existence by then.
Oh, and yes, giving music away for free devalues it.
A record shop owner adds : what about the people without internet access (there are still a few) or credit cards ?
Who will look after them ?
That's an interesting point Bill. They're not going to sell many downloads to their younger fanbase unless they can persuade their parents to do it for them. I expect the album will come out on CD in 2008 as originally scheduled.
And Dave, in 2050, I bet I can still find a record player to play my vinyl and a CD player to play my CD's. Will I be able to play my mp3's assuming I didn't lose them all in a hard drive crash?
If times ever get tough, I can sell my CDs, my vinyl and possibly even the only cassette I still have (a bootleg of Nirvana at the Reading Festival 1992).
If times for the future youth get tough, will they be able to flog their hard drives? Even if music is free to download?
I read an article about the possible introduction of a 'download licence', whereby people pay a fixed monthly fee and can download as much or as little as they like, free of any further charge.
I think this may be the best option for the future, as musicians get paid, record companies get paid, and consumers won't pay through the nose for songs.
That is until they decide to bump the fixed fee up to something ridiculous...
The 21st Century sucks, man.
The 45p doesn't go to Radiohead, it goes to the credit card companies -- Visa, MasterCard, where ever.
I live in the United States where the cost is going to be at least double that, more like $2.
The OFP cracked down on absurdly high interchange rates in the UK already, but here in the US we're still trying to find a way to persuade the card companies to be up-front about that fee.
If the subject interests you at all, check out the website about interchange fees for the group I work with.
Also, can't wait for the album. I don't think it has to hurt the lesser-known bands. Maybe Radiohead can be a label themselves. Artist-run studios have been known in the movie business, so why not artist-run labels? And hey, if Radiohead let power go to their head, they'd be easier to kill than EMI!
My album purchases have gone down from 1 a week when I was a teenager to 1 or 2 a year now (I'm 36). Repeat this a few million times and no wonder the record industry's in trouble.
Incidentally, ventured into a branch of HMV last Friday afternoon and it was like a ghost town, only missing the tumbleweed blowing across the aisles. In my youth a visit to a record shop was a must for Friday afternoon..
15 Step
Like all Radiohead albums we start with a song that both sets the tone but not actually giving us too much of an inkling to what the rest of the album might sound like. Instantly bringing to mind Amnesiac opener "Pakt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box" with it's Warp Records sounding electronic glitches it's simple pitter-patter drumming reminding me of Can (not for the last time either, the drumming throughout is very Phill). It also sounds a lot like Yorke's work on The Eraser and feels like the songs on the first half of that record. It doesn't feel like an attempt to make a 'Radiohead greatest hit' of all their electronic leaning songs, "How come I end up where I started" indeed. Despite this Yorke's vocal does retain an element of soulfulness that can be heard on live versions. The guitar parts are very simple below the bubbling electronics and despite taking me by surprise first time the children's interjection works well despite sounded more like the ones used on The Go! Teams's "Ladyflash" than say a Boards of Canada record.
7.5/10
Bodysnatchers
Not only the most metronomic and tight drumming on the record, and by way of that sounding the closest to Can by way of the rhythm doing the same. I think of all the songs on the record this is the one nearest to the sound of Hail To The Thief but with nods to the Amnesiac b-side "Cuttooth". The first appearance of Yorke's falsetto croon which he seemed to almost reluctantly return to on his solo album accompanied by mewling guitars. One of the other common threads in the songs on the album is that they tend to make dynamic shifts towards the end so when you are hearing them four or five times you are anxious for that shift to come, this track contains one of the best ones on the record, akin to that on "2+2=5" as the end of the song races away with the loud abrasive guitars, needs a listen at a higher bitrate to determine how punishing the decompression has been on the mix but I would say it's probably minimal, A potential opening single, if Radiohead are going to bother with those on this record at all. Also contains the line most likely to be in a YTMND ("It is the 21st Century") of Yorke dancing with a pirate hat on or something
8.5/10
Nude
Well finally. One of the biggest fears I had going into this is that they would get this wrong in some way and I'd be constantly going back to live versions. Well they didn't thankfully as they manage to invoke the 1998 version with the ghostly opening sample and although the orchestra is quite a Disney syrupy one it's not overused and the mood of the track and the breathy, echoey conversational opening style of the vocals is much like a personal favourite of mine "You and Whose Army", nothing flash around the rest of it, simple drumming (Like the Mingus style flourishes on "Pyramid Song" this time), simple guitar parts. Does slightly border on crooner territory at times but just pulls back when the rest swells behind Yorke's swooning "oohs" at the end. Very reminiscent of the work Godrich did on Sea Change in terms of the mood of the strings. Great to hear Thom sing this without any treatment as such on his voice.
8.5/10
"Weird Fishes / Arpeggi"
That same tight pitter-patter style of drumming high up in the mix from Phil again and this is the only track where it starts to distract slightly. Even if before the 10 second mark you were thinking of PB&J's "Young Folks" a chiming Marr-esque running guitar line throughout begins to grip your attention and before you know it the drums go quiet in the over-long middle section before returning at the end. Overall feeling of a guitar band covering a track from the Richard D. James album or Radiohead playing a Kid A / Amnesiac track (a)live on their instruments. Drumming at the end sounded like a slightly lethargic Reni from the Stone Roses. Does overstay it's welcome slightly but not really a bad song.
6.5/10
All I Need
A simple love song on surface but so much more complex then the kind of Snow Patrol wetness I've seen inferred to by some on here. Very evocative of the kind of backing track that Boards of Canada use or the incidental music played on a Moog that you might find in British films from the early seventies supplemented by a cello. Lyrically a relative of earlier songs "How Can You Be Sure" and "A Reminder" and the most improved song in the studio from the live versions for my money. Another waiting for the build up which does come very late in the track heralded by a whooshing noise that was quite like the ones found on "The Private Psychedelic Reel" as well as some drawn out rumbling cymbals rush (lol) that reminded me of the ones that Xenomania put on Girls Aloud records. One of the strongest on the record and
you'd hope this would be a single too if they were doing that kind of thing, maybe the third one though.
9/10
"Faust ARP"
Wasn't expecting any lyrics here so "Wakey wakey" did just that to me I was another who expected this to be a instrumental track instead of the simple little nu-folk ditty it is. Finger picking guitar which brings to mind The Beatles Esher demos from 1968 with it's riff that plays on the same pattern as as "No Surprises" and it's lighter tone (compared to the rest of the record) is offset by the darker strings, almost like the ones Robert Kirby arranged for Nick Drake and the one he didn't ("River Man"). Don't know what this had to do with Faust but it did remind of Lennon's "#9 Dream" as well. A song like this is hard to review individually but in the context of the album it's good to see Raidohead stand their ground and go all out to create a piece of work and not allow Apple to sell songs from their previous albums.
8/10
"Reckoner"
Another unexpected song in that it sounds nothing like the version from 2001 on YouTube, whereas that sounds a lot like "Electioneering" or other rockier songs from that era it now a much less intense, delicate track. Looping guitar and rippling vocals on their own wouldn't be out of place as a Bends-era track but the rest of it meaning it wouldn't have gone amiss on The Eraser. Also brought to mind shades of "I Will" and via the backing vocals at the end "In Limbo". Once again the strings at the end on it invoking Drake or at least the ones that Godrich did for Beck in 2002 along side some more of that tight drumming, I don't think that anyone could say that Selway was an anonymous drummer and really comes to his own on this record (solo album anyone?)
7.5/10
"House of Cards"
The track that had wormed it's way into my head the most from re-listening to the live versions from last year and it's relaxed, introspective nature will probably see it compared to the bands rat children that followed the Pied Piper's of Yorke and Buckley over the last few years. However it's a lot more interesting than those inferior artists pop-songs despite it's poppy nature (and I'm pretty sure it's far too obtuse and foreboding to get daytime play on the commercial radio network. "Infrastructure will collapse" anybody?) The key track on the record for the mood it invokes of this being an minimal, intimate, lush and relaxed record; not true on all the tracks but the impression I've come away with each time. Another reference to adultery / love life in the keys in the bowl line (a practice from swinging in the seventies, in the UK at least, where the men would put their car keys in a bowl and the women would pick them out.) Again backed up with strings but this time filtered through the sinister machine to bring a chilly mood to the Young Americans vibe that the vocals give it, reminded me of "Bullet Proof" as well. Maybe one day someone on American Idol will do it. It made me (spin with a) grin.
9/10
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place"
If they want a second single it's here. Starts off with a guitar line that brought to mind "Everlong" with the Spanish guitar and the sumptuous warm vocal chant which continues throughout the record, The highest in the mix I've heard Thom's voice on an up-tempo rockier song since maybe The Bends, those trends we saw on The Eraser were right. maybe the closest thing they have done to work on OK Computer for a decade as it builds to a near-frenzy accompanied by that beat going round and round. Sounds like it was rehearsed forever with spidery guitar parts, chasing the rising cadence of Yorke's voice around the halfway point without ever going into a "My Iron Lung" wig out, the band has well outgrown songs that sound like that being on albums. Like I've mentioned before you are prepared for the end of the song after hearing it a few times and the build up to the end is genuinely gripping in the way it is on say "There There" when the guitar lines crunch in like giant icicles.
9/10
"Videotape"
As Paul McCartney says at the end of the demo of "Penny Lane" with all that extra stuff on "A suitable ending" and I feel the same way about this. Having heard the versions of this from live shows you do get the feeling that, as Yorke sings elsewhere there's "something missing" nevertheless I'm glad the recorded version isn't quite as orchestral and bordering on sickly as the, in my opinion, bodged job of "Sail To The Moon" the piano is played with a harder edge than other songs like it the band have done and that punctuates Yorke's plaintive voacl quite well. One that I found to be quite affecting in it's delivery of the lines like “Shouldn’t be afraid because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen” I really like what they've done with the drumming on it and the backwards delivery sounds like life being sucked out of the song (and Yorke) as well as the titular video tape going round.
8.5/10
On my fifth lesson it becomes clear that they didn't need to worry about pushing back the boundaries of music on this record as they are giving us exactly what we want with this album by recording a handful of great songs in the Radiohead mode and constructing them into an album.
Is this a truly collosal, ground-breaking record? No. Is it a very good one. Yes. 8.4 for now, better then HTTT and almost as good as Amnesiac for me.
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