Radiohead - In Rainbows

[Crypt]

Love the new album and love the way they released it. You can pay whatever you want for it, even nothing. Initial reports say that only one-third of all downloads were "free", the rest paid at least something. The average download "tip" is $8. That's damn good considering that these guys see 100% of all that money.

I see NIN and some others are following suit. Bravo, finally artists taking control over their destiny and THEIR earnings. It will be interesting to see how a less successful band will be able to pull this off. But for the big dogs, this is a HUGE FU to all the labels and RIAA.

Yes I paid for my download.

[Daniel]

Labels are redundant in this day and age when you can promote over the internet. People and artists don't need labels, labels need them and as labels realise this they'll start to play nice.

[Dave B]

Balls, with respect. Major established artists are quite capable of paying for their own recording sessions then hosting the resultant tracks on their own websites for download, but for a new talent that's in most cases an impossible dream.

There was a lot of hype about Lily Allen being "discovered" on MySpace, but that was the result of a subtle but expensive publicity drive by her record company and her father. Not to mention the initial cost of professionally recording her material.

Yes it's possible to hire recording equipment or to do the job cheaply on even a modest PC, but for a remotely professional job you need a proper studio. For an emerging artist the only way this is likely to happen is for a record company's A&R guys to pick them up and advance those fees.

The only other path would be to prostitute their entire career and artistic integrity to one of the awful "reality" shows, signing over their dignity and soul to a marketing man like Simon Cowell. Even typing that sends shivers down my spine.

I admire what Radiohead have done, it's bought them a ton of publicity and done wonders for their sales, although I use the word "sales" advisedly in this case.

But if this marks the end of traditional record companies then it's a black day for music.

[Daniel]

Balls, with respect. Major established artists are quite capable of paying for their own recording sessions then hosting the resultant tracks on their own websites for download, but for a new talent that's in most cases an impossible dream.

There was a lot of hype about Lily Allen being "discovered" on MySpace, but that was the result of a subtle but expensive publicity drive by her record company and her father. Not to mention the initial cost of professionally recording her material.

Yes it's possible to hire recording equipment or to do the job cheaply on even a modest PC, but for a remotely professional job you need a proper studio. For an emerging artist the only way this is likely to happen is for a record company's A&R guys to pick them up and advance those fees.

The only other path would be to prostitute their entire career and artistic integrity to one of the awful "reality" shows, signing over their dignity and soul to a marketing man like Simon Cowell. Even typing that sends shivers down my spine.

I admire what Radiohead have done, it's bought them a ton of publicity and done wonders for their sales, although I use the word "sales" advisedly in this case.

But if this marks the end of traditional record companies then it's a black day for music.
OK perhaps my analogy was a little simple. But emerging artists aren't where the big money is for record companies. It's established artists like Radiohead and so on which make most of the money. If they decide that their new albums are going to go through this sort of distribution route then that's a big load of money that isn't going to be going their ways. TBH if I was an up and coming recording artist and I believed that I was onto a winner with my music I wouldn't go the Dragons Den route of giving the profits away to someone else! I'd take a personal loan out, record my music and then go the way of radiohead and advertise (although to be fair they had a lot of help with the media) and sell it myself and keep all the profits for myself :)

[Daniel]

I should also point out that digital distribution routes for PC games work very well and are popular and they are in themselves a good advertisement for product. I bought a game on Steam that was advertised on Steam.

In this day and age where a lot of people have MP3 players a lot of people won't see the point of going into a store and paying more than they could conceivably pay online when all they do is play it on their MP3 player. I think it would be horrible for lots of badly produced music to be played on the radio but then again most of the music on my phone that I'm listening now is about 25-30 years old so it doesn't bother me much :p I don't mind paying Microsoft 80 quid for a product (Vista) that they worked on and made themselves. But to pay 10 quid or something for a CD and have hardly any of that actually go to the people who made it is wrong IMHO :mark: I hope this is the start of a big change in the industry.

[Dave B]

I see what you're saying, and it's frustrating that very little of the profit from a £10 CD go to the artist concerned. But that's the nature of the business, the large established acts effectively subsidise new talent.

For every Radiohead / Elton John / Madonna who make squillions for their record company, there's a hundred bands hauling their own equipment round every local pub and club in the back of their mate's battered Transit van, desperately working their bits off trying to find some commercial success.

In many cases they'll fail and go back to their day jobs, either becuase they didn't get a lucky break or more simply because they just weren't good enough. I doubt that any responsible lender would back them to the extent that a record company would, nor be in a position to advise or promote them.

If established artists effectively remove their subsidy to the industry, it'll be new talent which suffers.

[Donney]

I admire what they've done and, although it is easier for them than for upcoming artists, I also hope it starts a revolution towards a new music industry.

[Daniel]

I see what you're saying, and it's frustrating that very little of the profit from a £10 CD go to the artist concerned. But that's the nature of the business, the large established acts effectively subsidise new talent.

For every Radiohead / Elton John / Madonna who make squillions for their record company, there's a hundred bands hauling their own equipment round every local pub and club in the back of their mate's battered Transit van, desperately working their bits off trying to find some commercial success.

In many cases they'll fail and go back to their day jobs, either becuase they didn't get a lucky break or more simply because they just weren't good enough. I doubt that any responsible lender would back them to the extent that a record company would, nor be in a position to advise or promote them.

If established artists effectively remove their subsidy to the industry, it'll be new talent which suffers.
But in this day and age if a song is good and gets played on Radio 1 or Radio 2 it will sell and have commercial success. PC games make do with a lot of promotion on TV and on the radio :) People pay good money to buy magazines to find out about what games are coming out and so on. Why not have more online publications to promote music on the basis of how good it actually is rather than who the artist got signed by ;)

[Dave B]

But how do you get onto the a radio playlist in the first place? Why do you suppose that most radio stations have an incredibly narrow playlist, dominated by tracks from the major record companies?

Radio One has tried to replace John Peel with various presenters championing new music, Radio Two have people like Mark Radcliffe doing a similar job, but it's still rare that a completely unsigned unsupported act will make an impact.

[Daniel]

But how do you get onto the a radio playlist in the first place? Why do you suppose that most radio stations have an incredibly narrow playlist, dominated by tracks from the major record companies?

Radio One has tried to replace John Peel with various presenters championing new music, Radio Two have people like Mark Radcliffe doing a similar job, but it's still rare that a completely unsigned unsupported act will make an impact.
Yes but as I said the distribution route can be it's own advertising engine. When I start up my hypothetical Steam Music account I could ask to only get advertisements for the styles of music I like. Steam gets a much smaller cut for simply being a distribution route than a record label does for what they do.

Thing is the music we're getting today is total crapola so any change which involves decent artists getting a proper cut is a good thing and if it decentralises the music industry then oh well! It'll sort itself out in the long run. Sony should stop making batteries that explode, consoles that are too expensive and crap music if they want to make money ;)

The labels were sleeping while MP3 came along and instead of trying to use the power to ensure they survive and make a good profit they got greedy and stuck to old methods which by default cheat the hard working artist out of money. It was inevitable that artists would try to distribute their music themselves and make more money. If emerging artists lose out it's a pity but it's only the label's fault for being greedy in the first place and forcing their cash cows to go it alone ;)

[Erki]

People still have their voices(thank you tobacco ban!), there are plenty of instruments around, even if your only instrument is your computer. ;) It's not as if we're going to sit around in silence.

Although silence is one of my favourite songs as well. :s tare:

[SOD]

But how do you get onto the a radio playlist in the first place? Why do you suppose that most radio stations have an incredibly narrow playlist, dominated by tracks from the major record companies?

Radio One has tried to replace John Peel with various presenters championing new music, Radio Two have people like Mark Radcliffe doing a similar job, but it's still rare that a completely unsigned unsupported act will make an impact.

John Peel was unique, he lived for new music, he was always in search of hearing something that he never heard before. Pretty unlikely someone will emerge like that when all they have for job security is a 3 year Beeb contract and likely to be repalced by someone with a funny accent pimping the new musical trend.

In regards to radiohead; the record companies, the distributors & the record shops all played their part in putting artists out of business over the years. The retailers would never pay the small labels for their produce, that's why big labels have to distribute the records in order to collect money from the retailer. Selling mp3s from ones website, thus bypassing all the middlemen (itunes included), is an artist's dream though getting promoted is a diferent matter. Music CD's/Mp3 are being marked down to zero, the next big moneypile makers are the summer festivals, getting in on a festival will now be a band's main objective.

[SOD]

The labels were sleeping while MP3 came along and instead of trying to use the power to ensure they survive and make a good profit they got greedy and stuck to old methods which by default cheat the hard working artist out of money. It was inevitable that artists would try to distribute their music themselves and make more money. If emerging artists lose out it's a pity but it's only the label's fault for being greedy in the first place and forcing their cash cows to go it alone ;)

what they didn't realise was that the price they could charge for music was being slashed to zero.

[Storm]

So this album is only digital ?

[Sleeper]

No, it'll get a special CD/vynil releasethat will cost about £40, if I've read correctly.

[Malbec]

No, it'll get a special CD/vynil releasethat will cost about £40, if I've read correctly.

I've heard rumours also that they'll release a CD version on its own which is good because MP3 isn't listenable on a hi-fi system and I don't want to spend £40 for some stuff I don't want.

I quite like the album but I don't think Radiohead have moved on much since their last stuff. Previously their sound used to change a lot from album to album. I'd like to see them be as adventurous again.

Daniel, plenty of upandcoming bands have already released their albums in downloadable form on the internet, Radiohead aren't really revolutionising anything. If you want to sell music you need promotion and in this day and age only record companies have that power.

[Daniel]

I've heard rumours also that they'll release a CD version on its own which is good because MP3 isn't listenable on a hi-fi system and I don't want to spend £40 for some stuff I don't want.

I quite like the album but I don't think Radiohead have moved on much since their last stuff. Previously their sound used to change a lot from album to album. I'd like to see them be as adventurous again.

Daniel, plenty of upandcoming bands have already released their albums in downloadable form on the internet, Radiohead aren't really revolutionising anything. If you want to sell music you need promotion and in this day and age only record companies have that power.
Yes but as you've said none are big bands :)

[Malbec]

Yes but as you've said none are big bands :)

Exactly, proving the point that to become big a band needs labels to promote them.

[Daniel]

Not what I was saying :-/ I was simply saying that to prove that a distribution route is profitable it takes a well known example to prove it's worth.

[Malbec]

Not what I was saying :-/ I was simply saying that to prove that a distribution route is profitable it takes a well known example to prove it's worth.

Sorry I don't agree.

Its pretty obvious that if you remove the cost of manufacturing/distributing CDs and the cut taken by the label and shops, online selling is more profitable. It didn't need Radiohead to demonstrate that. Also Radiohead are in talks to renew their contract with EMI/Parlophone so clearly they prefer to work with a label too.

A good income isn't just about profitability per unit sold, its profit per unit x unit sold.