Radiohead 2.0 (Part Two)

It seems that all anyone writing about music can talk about this is the unique marketing and distribution strategy employed by Radiohead on their latest release. Last week, I reported on the band's decision to release the album free of a label as a digital download only available at their website. (A box set featuring physical copies on CD and vinyl will be available in December). Radiohead wrote another twist into the plot by allowing consumers to decide how much they wanted to pay for the album.

Pitchfork's Scott Plagenhoef writes:

It's as weirdly conservative as it is revolutionary, a convoluted pricing-and-release schedule that leans heavily on a high-end product rather than the music itself. Radiohead are asking you to value the presentation-- the tangential and the tangible-- instead of the sounds coming out of your speakers, in the process admitting what any teenager with a high-speed computer and a sense of entitlement will tell you these days: To a large subset of "consumers," music is no longer worth the price of the CDs it's printed on.

So what does this mean for the traditional record industry? David Downs writes in the SF Weekly,

According to a poll by the U.K.'s NME, fans are prepaying an average of $10 for In Rainbows. The Wall Street Journal estimates the cost to Radiohead is $3.40 per unit. So take $6.60 in profit, multiplied by a conservative million downloads, and Radiohead look like the smartest guys in the room.... Over on the East Coast, Fader magazine founder and Cornerstone promotions chief Jon Cohen says In Rainbows' unique distribution and cost methods represent a huge "fuck you" to the majors....

Cohen adds there's no better band to make the industry innovate: "I think the majors are scared shitless right now. If they succeed — and I 100 percent think they will — it shows bands like a U2 or a Pearl Jam or a Dave Matthews Band that they can build their own infrastructure too."

And others are following suit. Trent Reznor announced earlier this week that he is fed up with the industry and may want to remain label-free.

While such a move is a major hit to the major labels, I don't think it will impact the independents in the same fashion. Up-and-coming acts (who do not have the Radiohead name brand power) will still need the assistance of independent labels. With the Radiohead release - as well as the Kanye/50 Cent release date battle, I think we've seen that fans are still very much interested in buying music. Star power alone - and even great songs - will not sell albums. Instead, artists and labels need to remain clever and innovative in their marketing and release strategies. Though indie labels should probably not start allowing their fans to set their own price, they should take the creative principles of these releases to heart. I know that we are.

**UPDATE (10:37 AM PST)**
From Pitchfork: "According to a Gigwise.com report that cites an unnamed "source close to the band"-- and completely unconfirmed at this point-- the digital version of In Rainbows that Radiohead made available October 10 logged an impressive 1.2 million downloads in its very first day on the digital market."

**UPDATE (11:05 AM PST)**
OK, so this situation is starting to become as complicated as the Lupe/Tribe "Fiasco-gate." An MTV report voices concerns from fans regarding the "poor sound quality" of the digital download:

First and foremost, all of Radiohead's previous albums were already available as MP3s encoded at 320 kilobits per second — the highest-possible compression rate in the format (though still not nearing the quality of a compact disc) — and most file-sharers scoff at anything less than 192 kbps. (MP3 files encoded with a lower bit rate will generally play back at a lower quality — something not readily apparent on tiny iPod earbuds but obvious enough on high-end home stereos.)

Second, most took issue with when Radiohead chose to announce that In Rainbows would be available at 160 kbps — after the majority of their fans had already paid for the download. To be fair, however, the band did give potential customers the power of choosing how much they wanted to pay to download the album. It could be had for as little as the transaction fee of 45 pence, or roughly 92 cents. There was also an option on the Web site to cancel orders; though, given the timing of the bit-rate announcement, fans had less than 24 hours to do so.

"Most promo MP3s come at a higher bit rate," wrote the author of U.K. blog Kids Pushing Kids. "Worst pound and pence I've ever spent."