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[j.hall]

curious what the indie rock community thinks of what radiohead is doing with their new record.

[el duderino]

i havent heard it yet but in terms of their sales...

i really dont know what to think. it seems cool but 40 pounds for the box set thingy? ouch. pay what you want for a digital download is cool but it makes me wonder what effect this would have on bands  without the status of radiohead, or even the gin blossoms for that matter.

if choosing what you pay takes over, and everyone buys digitally aside from die hard fans, touring is going to be a bitch for someone starting out.

it'll be interesting to see what happens that is for sure.

[j.hall]

i'm really interested to watch this play out in the indie rock world i live in.

i can see it being a kiss of death, or the best thing ever.

for RH in particular, i think it's a smart move.  and i can't really see those guys making a hasty decision.  they seem to me like their decisions are always well planned.

[Adam Miller]

I heard (second hand- might just be spurious gossip) that when an artist gives away a record, they are liable to their publishers to the tune of 40 cents for every copy given away. Not only this, but the producer of the record is also liable for a share, meaning that they could lose money for every copy given away. That one caught my attention, if it is indeed true...

[j.hall]

it could easily be true, the question is, does the band ever pay?

that invoice could easily get shredded.  

and really, who has to issue the number to the publisher?  if RH is acting as the label, they can just say, "sorry guys, we got paid for all of them."

i'm sure that situation could just drag on until the publisher gave up.

[Fig]

Though I don't know for certain, I would bet that Radiohead is their own publishing company.

I, too, am interested if/how this works out for them.  I feel that typical fans will download the new record, diehards will buy the boxed set and then the band is counting on all of them to buy tickets when the tour starts.

Very interesting move, indeed.

Fig

[WallyWest]

I know that Jonah Matranga (ex far) has done this for a while with his solo projects.  When i seen Onelinedrawing live years ago, he announced that you could name your own price for his CD at the merch desk. I think most people paid the full amount, cause it feels wrong and you look kinda cheap ha.  

Over the internet is another story though. If it does work out then they could be the band that people talk about in the future having changed everything.

I think its stellar that they're being creative.

but I will miss visiting record stores.

[iamthecosmos]

Fig wrote on Thu, 04 October 2007 15:44

Though I don't know for certain, I would bet that Radiohead is their own publishing company. Fig

Maybe for this release, not for the last few. Their old songs are owned by Warner Chappel ('even though we wrote them', as it says in the OK Computer liner notes).

I think it's a great idea. I don't know anyone who makes decent money from their record sales, bearing in mind that myself and any of my friends that are in bands have all got our first record deals in the last five years (mostly with majors). Like it or not, records being packaged like the RH 'discbox' make sense because recorded music is not seen as a physical medium any more, it's like merch. I'm amazed by people who don't understand that this is the way perceptions of recorded music have shifted.

I think my band will try something like this on our next release, but probably with an option to buy the album for

[j.hall]

before the radiohead did this, my band was discussing NOT pressing CD's at all.

we've been looking into bulk flash drives, and just selling the "record" on flash drives.

having 192k m4a's and a full bandwidth version on there, and artwork.

still toying with how we'll pull this off, but we have little interest in pressing CDs.

[el duderino]

what do you guys think of the actual album?

personally, im not that into it. a friend of mine put it quite well when he said it sounds like they had ideas for songs, but somewhere along the way it became "close enough" without being fully developed. it just doesnt go anywhere and imo drags on. just my 2 cents.

[M Carter]

I need to formulate my thoughts more on it but this 'business model' really frightens me, and not just because I manage a large recording facility.  I'm more concerned about how this type of 'pay what you want to' type thing would affect independent acts sales and the abilities of engineers/producers to get paid.  

[j.hall]

i'm not worried at all about getting paid for what i do.

for me, a very large portion of my business is from bands recording stuff themselves and hiring me to mix it.

i honestly think we'll see more and more of this.

even if radiohead changes the marketplace completely, bands will still have to record, and i think bands are more willing then ever to try their hand at recording, but realistically, many just want to play and only be on one side of the glass.

i'd be more worried about how this will effect the "little" guy trying to tour and make ends meet.

[scottoliphant]

el duderino wrote on Mon, 15 October 2007 10:55

what do you guys think of the actual album? personally, im not that into it. a friend of mine put it quite well when he said it sounds like they had ideas for songs, but somewhere along the way it became "close enough" without being fully developed. it just doesnt go anywhere and imo drags on. just my 2 cents.

i dig it. it sounds more like a band, less like Thom and Johnny playing with toys. Don't get me wrong though, i love those too. The box set has a second CD with more new stuff, so we'll see how the final thing plays out. http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/MoreInfo.html?PID=2

[M Carter]

I'm hearing rumors now that the band is planning to release the record 'traditionally' through a label sometime in January '08.  This is from the world's most accurate encyclopedia, Wikipedia, so we'll see.  Does anyone know if this was the plan all along?

This whole 'pay what you want' or 'free download' thing brings to mind a (really great) record I mixed this past year for an indie hip hop artist.  He spent a lot of time and a little bit of money putting his 10 song album together only to decide to put it up on poorly designed website as a free download without any way of tracking how many downloads have occurred, with no input from anyone with any type of experience pushing a record. From what I can tell his only marketing has been live shows and myspace, and I haven't seen any significant change in the turnout at his shows or the echelon of venue he performs at.  This means he has no source of music related revenue at this point (no turnout for shows = no pay from the club / free record = no money from sales), which means no money to fund a future project.  

The point I'm trying to make is that this is a very easy thing for a band like radiohead to pull off 7(?) albums into their career.  Doesn't this kind of make them the wrong people to be asking "Why does anyone need record labels anyway?"  

[j.hall]

M Carter wrote on Tue, 16 October 2007 13:58

Doesn't this kind of make them the wrong people to be asking "Why does anyone need record labels anyway?"

INDEED!!!!

it would be foolish of radiohead (something i don't attribute to them) to think this fell in their laps.

and i doubt that anyone in that band would recommend this course of action to an up and coming band.