Radiohead Has My Blessing
Posted October 1st, 2007 by Howard Tayler
In case you missed the news, Radiohead (one of the biggest bands of the decade) has decided to release their new album in the same way I released the Strohl Munitions Coloring Book: you name your price, and you get the digital goods.
Okay, I’m not claiming to have invented this, nor am I claiming that Radiohead got the idea from me. People have been doing this for years, starting with a couple of shareware developers in 1984 who made millions of dollars at it.
The official Radiohead site is here. The album will be available in ten days, but you can pay now, naming your price. Personally, I would love to see Radiohead make hojillions of dollars at this, permanently validating that which I know to already be valid. Just because a warm fuzzy is redundant doesn’t mean it’s not warm and fuzzy.
In other news, what do you call a legion of the walking dead who are running out of corpses to feed on, and will drop into a ditch sometime in the next twenty years? RIAA.
Explore posts in the same categories: Business, Industry News
October 1st, 2007 at 7:49 pm
…the only difference, of course, being that zombies can occasionally be trained to perform simple tasks, as shown in Shaun of the Dead. RIAA execs aren’t even that useful.
October 1st, 2007 at 8:08 pm
The RIAA’s model is INSANE. As near as I can tell, it goes like this: There are 300 million people in America. 5 million people bought Spear Britney’s new album, therefore, 295 million people pirated it.
Or, We sold 10 million copies of X. X2 only sold 7 million copies, therefore, 3 million copies were lost to “piracy.”
No, X probably sucked, and X2 sucked worse (Generic X, not referring to the X-Men movies). The word got out and people dissed you.
When your PR model is based on suing teenagers and grandmothers for making home recordings, you’re not a zombie, you’re a bloodsucking vampire or a leech. Because even carrion eaters don’t stoop that low.
Even G Lucas somehow figured that, in the late 90s, millions of people had access to high speed internet, DVD burners and the savvy to find his “pirated” movie online in order to bypass the theaters and make the sales of Ep2 and Ep 3 (A Steaming Pile of Sith) lower than those of Ep 1. That’s the only possible reason, right?
October 1st, 2007 at 8:45 pm
“In other news, what do you call a legion of the walking dead who are running out of corpses to feed on, and will drop into a ditch sometime in the next twenty years? RIAA.”
ZING!
October 1st, 2007 at 11:25 pm
One problem. I just tried to buy it, and the store is HORRIBLE. I failed, the first time I got “something” wrong, and it send me back to try again, with a blank form, and then the 2nd time it said I was already registered. Now I am partially registered limbo. SO, great idea, bad execution…
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Simnick: Agreed. For a group of professionals, they sure managed to appear amateur. I could have put up a better storefront than that.
Oh, wait. I DID put up a better storefront than that.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:21 am
You know, when I first heard Radiohead were doing this, the first thing I thought was that Schlock got sold like that too, and the controversy about it was ridiculous when we’d seen that business model work before (average donation of $7 for the Schlock book, anyone?). Then I remembered that not everyone has realised Schlock exists, and they actually think Radiohead are doing something no-one has done before. (ok, I’m not a radiohead fan… Hail to the Chief was the reason I stopped listening to a particular radio station when it was their “feature album” for a week). Oh well, good or bad, they’re taking one more step to breaking that copyright stranglehold. If only they’d done it so people could actually get through the checkout…
October 4th, 2007 at 12:06 am
only trouble i had was creditcard code related…worked after doing the same thing 5 times tho,
October 10th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
The good news? Got my download today, and it’s an excellent album, with echoes of The Bends with some new things nodding toward mainstream while still experimenting with sound and rhythm. To be honest, it’s a little like York’s solo effort. I gave them a good price, and hopefully as much of it as possible goes to the band. I’ve been listening to Radiohead for their entire output, and appreciate that they are at least trying to buck the distribution system. They have an innately tech-savvy audience, and should do well, even by word of mouth. I wonder if there will be any kind of advertising, or press release?