Radiohead Revolution? Or Just Same Old?
Initially, it appeared to be straight on story of overwhelming
positive and massive buzz, as well as a potential death knell for the
current record label distribution system.
Now, it might turn out to be a cautionary tale of how not to treat your most loyal customers and that the age of transparency can bite even those who seemed to be pushing the customer-in-control agenda.
Radiohead (an English band for those not familiar), recently announced that they would be releasing their latest album, In Rainbows, via their website and sans record label. The biggest news was that the price point would be up to the consumer (aside from a small required transaction fee) - you could pay as little as £0 or as much as £100 as some reportedly paid.
I gladly paid what I considered an amount substantial enough to represent more than Radiohead would likely have seen from a record label, but small enough to make me actually want to pay for music. I was eager to see the results of this experiment and to see what others considered the right amount. It appeared the initial impact was going to be big - Radiohead had at least two listings in the top 100 Google searches on the day of the release.
All this goodwill very quickly vanished when I noticed blog posts and even stories in mainstream media (MTV), reporting about the backlash and disappointment when the download turned out to perhaps not be the highest quality. Ooops! I didn't read the fine print -- 160Kbs files. Granted, this is not bad quality and it is debatable how much of a difference it makes practically, but the tone of the comments and the reported statements from the band and their manager made me feel duped. Was this just a promotional ploy for when their CD comes out (under a label deal)?
At the end of the day, I have an album of music I like and probably won't notice any quality issues -- and I paid what I wanted. But I can't help lose the bad taste in my mouth about the lack of forthrightness on Radiohead's part.
I hope they read the fine print in their next record label contract.
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