Radiohead Says Name Your Own Price for New Album

TechDirt is reporting that the band Radiohead has apparently chosen the path less traveled when it comes to the release of their new album. They are offering two very unique methods of purchase for their new music, the ability to name your own price for a digital download or the ability to purchase a special "discbox" which will contain the album on CD and vinyl in addition to a horde of goodies. Will be interesting to see how this new model works out for them and what it might do to more traditional methods.

Don't know if it will work

But it is beautiful PR for Radiohead

direct link?

How about a direct link to the page where you can pre-order the album (in either form)? http://www.inrainbows.com/ [inrainbows.com]

heh, make the minimum price $1

and even after hosting/bandwidth fees and site maintenance, they are probably still making more $$ per sale than they would have with a traditional record deal

Name my own price?

-$50,000.00. I'll take cash or check.

"Unique"

Something is either unique or it isn't.

There's no "Somewhat unique", or "very unique".

Re:"Unique"

Something is either unique or it isn't. There's no "Somewhat unique", or "very unique".

My mother was an English teacher and she used to complain about people misusing the word unique in this way all the time. And while I certainly understand the point you and she are making, I have long wondered at what point does a commonly misused word simply become redefined?

You can argue that "very unique" is non-sensical, but the truth is that everyone reading that phrase knows the intention of the author, and therefore information information is being conveyed.

Re:"Unique"

You exhibit a rather unique sort of pedantry.

This is brilliant

Radiohead wins, the fans win, the RIAA companies lose. Radiohead makes more for their music, fans pay less, and the greedy middlemen eventually begin considering honest jobs.

Only immediate problem I see is that the record companies are going to be darned sure to sign new bands to perpetual contracts to prevent this kind of defection in the event of success. Maybe the new pathway will be for new bands to get exposure on iTunes or Amazon's new .mp3 download service. And just maybe, as the article suggests, big successful bands selling direct will feature or promote new, worthy acts.

We can be glad the sun is setting on the **AAs.

Not sure about you, but I like this

Not because $0.00 is a valid price to download, but because they are actually doing something right, valuing a download vs. real physical product in this test. No matter what they do, people will be sharing their music for free, so they capitalize on that for the news bite, AND offer up more than a license to listen to 3+ minutes of music for sale. The way the human mind tends to work, they stand a good chance of making money on this.

love this idea...

I think this (along with, unfortunately, corporate sponsorship) is the future of original music sales. Several years ago, after downloading the fantastic "Source Tags and Codes" album from the Band "And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead", I tried to email the lads and offer them $5 directly for the music.

I got a nice email from someone saying "thanks, but due to contract restrictions with the record label, they could not accept direct donations...please support us by purchasing our album from traditional sources" or something along those lines.

There is something 10x more satisfying by trying to give my hard earned money directly to the artist, and not to the scum-sucking music executives who have, for years, been stealing millions from naive, unsuspecting bands.

Odd model

The problem with this model is that people haven't heard the album, and therefore don't know how good it is, so they can't decide in an informed fashion how much they want to pay for it. Even under the assumption that people will be happiest if they pay what they feel something is worth, I expect that people's happiness falls off more quickly on the overpaying side than the underpaying side, and that people expect this is general, so people will underpay to maximize their expected happiness if they don't know what they will feel something is worth.

How much goes to radiohead?

I've always said, if artists I liked would simply put up a paypal link on their page, where I knew all the money went to them... I'd gladly pay even list price for a lot of cd's. Knowing that only 1$ of my 20$ payment goes to the artist, and the rest to the MAFIAA, has long deterred me from purchasing any new music.

SO... how much of my price goes straight to radiohead? And how much goes to the MAFIAA (if any)? The article wasn't really clear about that point... Anyone care to enlighten me/us?

Admirable, but ultimately useless

I think this is absolutely great of Radiohead to do, and I give them props for putting their fans first. However, from the perspective of hoping that this moves the industry in the same direction, I don't see that happening. This addresses the problem of "how to cut out the RIAA" from existing, known bands. However, it does not account for how to generate new interest in the marketplace without the RIAA. Currently, 95%+ of the artists out there that most people have actually heard of all still deal with the RIAA.

iTunes and other online distribution stores are a start. However, there still needs to be a better way to get lesser-known artists' music broadcast to as many people as possible, while still cutting the RIAA out of the loop. The answer to that dilemma? Well, I guess I'm not really sure. =/

Treat Them As Artists?

I'd like to offer a perspective different from the PR stunt that people seem to think it is.

Perhaps they are just artists. Granted, they've probably made enough money from their prior albums to no longer need to worry about money. They are treating their music like a piece of art. Real art should be free and open to the public (which is why public museums in London are free to the public). If this was their intention then I applaud Radiohead.

Personally, I'm a fan but not the biggest fan. I would've liked to sample the album beforehand but their reputation and previous albums are good enough for me to put money on the line.

Re:Does...

free count as a price?

Of course it does. That's sort of the point, isn't it? You pay what it is worth to you. If it is worth nothing, pay nothing. If nobody pays anything, we are unlikely to see more music from Radiohead (especially under such permissive marketing schemes) but it wasn't worth anything to you so who cares?

If, on the other hand, it is worth something to you, you might want to send them something to encourage them to continue making music.

It's really quite simple.

Re:Does...

This problem is isomorphic to the tragedy of the commons:

You are faced with the choice of supporting the band, or not supporting the band. Many people need to support the band in order for it to stay afloat.

If you support the band, you have no reason to believe anyone else will support the band, but you are unable to spend the money you spent supporting the band on other things. So the rational decision is to refuse to support the band, and hope that someone else does.

This might work because people feel good about giving away money, but it wouldnt scale very well for the rest of the industry.

Re:Does...

Actually, I think in this case the rational decision is to give them money because you don't know if anyone else will. If you actually enjoy Radiohead and want to support them, why would you rationally rely on "hope" as a means to their support rather than the logical, "I know Radiohead is getting support, because I supported them."

Now, if Radiohead announced, "Hey, we made 20 million off this idea! Thanks guys!" then I could see the Tragedy of the Commons becoming common.

Re:Does...

Basic game theory shows that the amount that you were willing to pay is irrelevant to your decision to support or not.

The only thing that it says about the band is that none of their fans have taken game theory.

Re:Does...

The nice thing is you can pay nothing, download the music and see if you like it, if you're like me and don't know Radiohead from the Black Eyed Peas or Coldplay (I've heard of all of them, but never listened to any of their music). Then, if you like it, go back and buy it again with the price you consider fair, or go to a concert. Hopefully this works for them so other bands will give it a try.

Re:Does...

People are not going to pay if they don't have to. End of subject.

Really?

You do know that MagnaTune [magnatune.com] has requested donations for albums for years and done quite well for themselves and their artists? Admittedly they do ask for a minimum of $5 (most likely because for very small amounts it really isn't worth the trouble to process), but routinely get paid much more than that. Artists get a 50% cut of all sales (far better than any normal record company). But you can download 128k mp3's for free, and even use them in non-commercial podcasts.

I've bought a couple albums from them in the past couple of years, and just now I see I need to go back and give them more money since I see some more stuff I want.

The Residents [residents.com] have also had an online store for the past couple of years funded entirely by the honor system: if you need a track, download it and pay them: they only request that you pay more than $3 so that they don't get eaten by billing costs. And, of course, they have also had the "extra special cd" available for most of their works in the past few years (package with bonus CD, book, numbered edition, etc).

They seem to be doing very well despite being the most obscure successful band.

Sure, Radiohead may "lose" some sales... some people will download their music and not pay: most of these would be people who would have never listened to their music anyway. People who were willing to pay cash money for a CD will appreciate being able to pay less online (and not finance MegaMart Music Stores) and even appreciate the convenience of getting the music from their home. Completists will appreciate the bonus edition and will gladly buy it: possession is a major part of being a Completist.

I see no reason why this won't work for known bands with dedicated fans. It would be harder for the little obscure bar band to survive like this, but, then, most of them aren't making much from CD sales either, so it isn't clear that they would actually lose money.

Re:I don't even know what music they make

Just out of curiosity, is there such a thing as track lighting for a cave?

Re:They're make up for it

That being said, I wonder if this is some kind of strange social experiment to see if anyone actually puts more than $0 in the price box.

It's an interesting social experiment, to be sure... but not the first. Jamendo [jamendo.com], offers Creative-Commons music for free download, and provides a link to "support the artist" if you want to. Evidently [jamendo.com], people are willing to donate money for free music.

Magnatune [magnatune.com] also allows the buyer to set the price [magnatune.com] for an album purchase online: from $8 to $18. As far as I know, they've never released stats about how much people decide to pay.

So, this new model is not entirely unique.

I probably won't.

That's your choice. Many other people (myself included) certainly will pay some amount for the album. I guess the idea is that although lots of people will download it for free, those people would probably have downloaded it for free (via P2P) anyways. At least in this case, you allow those people who value easy downloading to conveniently "do the right thing" and directly support the artist.

Re:They're make up for it

That being said, I wonder if this is some kind of strange social experiment to see if anyone actually puts more than $0 in the price box. I probably won't.

Maybe if I was really hard up for cash, I'd consider putting in a lowball amount, but not $0. Putting in $0 would be worse, IMO than stiffing the waitstaff at a nice restaurant on their tip. You're not required to tip them, but you should. Why? They work hard, and make most of their money that way. Maybe it's just me, but I think that artists deserve to be paid for their efforts, even when they don't force the payment. They're asking to be paid a fair price, not to be stiffed. They've cut out the middlemen here, so perhaps that amount is less than you'd pay for a CD on Amazon. Perhaps it's more, for that very reason. They've let you decide.

You're cheating yourself

Somebody once took me to a Radiohead show to get rid of an extra ticket. I wasn't expecting much, but I was curious enough to check it out. I have to say: They blew the doors off. They were a really, really, really solid live band, and it took me a bit by surprise. Since then I've gone back and listened to their records and gained a lot more respect for their music. It's still not necessarily my cup of tea, but if there are any mainstream rock bands working that deserve respect I would say that Radiohead is one of them.

Re:Even more interesting

There's some comments in this Time Magazine article [time.com]. Some choice ones...

"This feels like yet another death knell," emailed an A&R executive at a major European label. "If the best band in the world doesn't want a part of us, I'm not sure what's left for this business."

"That's the interesting part of all this," says a producer who works primarily with American rap artists. "Radiohead is the best band in the world; if you can pay whatever you want for music by the best band in the world, why would you pay $13 dollars or $.99 cents for music by somebody less talented? Once you open that door and start giving music away legally, I'm not sure there's any going back."

Translation: "If this works, it's time to panic."

-S