As Bob Dylan miraculously prophesised back in 1964, (albeit with quite the wait!) “the times they are a-changin’”. It’s Radiohead’s turn to cause a storm this week after releasing their latest album, In Rainbows (10th Oct), with the added fact that it’s digitally downloadable (solely on their own site – someone should have told them about amazingtunes.com)... at whatever price you want to pay.
I’ll rephrase that…
Like a donations style offer, you specify the price you would like to pay (including £0.00) and then simply download the album – pay-as-you-please. This is a massive turn-about in music for a massive band that could quite easily have gone down the regular routes in utmost comfortability and earnings, however there appears a recognition from the boys that the industry is now greatly affected by the introduction of digitized media and the internet. As David Bowie predicted in 2002, music will flow like water through the digital channels and no band, big or small, can alter the flow. Obviously, Radiohead find themselves in a position to feasibly buck the trend, Bill and the B-flats’ 4-piece blues band down the local CIU club aren’t going to earn quite the same amount of pennies as Thom Yorke and the lads at their next live show, and I would imagine Radiohead aren’t about to run to the bank manager in need of a loan for their next album. But the implications of a band the size of Radiohead snubbing the usual routes of labels and executives is a good indication to the swing recorded music is facing.
They are not alone either, The Charlatans have struck a deal with XFM to give their album away as a free download exclusively on the XFM music website, starting with the new single on the 22nd Oct and the album following early next year.
As music, retailed as a product, becomes easier and easier to obtain, it’s perceived value has to decrease. And that combined with the ever increasing variation of music available on digital mediums, from signed and unsigned acts for next to nothing or even in many cases for free, labels cannot place the same extorted value on a few hand-selected recordings they wish to filter through to us. As a consequence, the recognised acts have started to realise they cannot expect the same return for a thin plastic disc as they could have 10 or 20 years ago, rather now they must gear themselves towards tours and gigs, turning away from music as a product. It’s exciting stuff, though I find it all begs the question, what are the major labels going to do about it?
(I’d like to think these leeching corporate identities we call major labels would take a leaf out of Richey Edwards book (once of the Manic Street Preachers) and slip off into obscurity now they’ve had their little foray with the music industry. But they’ll probably take a leaf out of Sir Paul McCartney’s book and go endorse a mug of coffee or a Big Bertha Burger so they can slap their name and free download on the litter that encases the totally unrelated product.)
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