September 30th, 2007
Radiohead Has Changed The Game
In June of 2006 I wrote a post on my old blog about Radiohead, and how they could potentially shift music business into 2.0 with digital self distribution of an album. It seems that very thing has come to pass.
With very little fanfare, they have launched a site for their next release, In Rainbows. To be made available only by pre-order (as either a box set/ digital or digital only) through this website at first.
Why do I think it’s such a brilliant maneuver?
* Releasing an album this way ensures the band of maximum impact before any “leaks” of music can be made through P2P.
* The only access to the first look at this music is through a paid gateway to the artist.* It shows the true power of viral marketing. ONE website and thousands of blog posts like this one will engage countless eyeballs and potential purchases for the release before one stitch of traditional media is involved. Who needs Rolling Stone or Spin when one post on Pitchfork starts a tidal wave of consumer generated buzz?
Does this mean that record labels are doomed? Hell no. Radiohead had YEARS of EMI resources put behind their promotion and publicity campaigns. (And who knows.. they might even be utilizing their distribution company for the standard CD version.)The reason they could do this is because they had a powerful marketing machine helping them reach the point where they could do this entirely on their own. So baby bands still will need the same backbone of financial support to reach the necessary ubiquity in the marketplace to create the “rock star.”
Bravo.
Written by Bill Wilson
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On September 30th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
PDF said:
The most interesting part is clicking through the preorder process for the download. At the shopping basket is seems you are able to enter whatever price you want for the album, even $0. “It’s up to you.” “No really, it’s up to you.” Would love to see the statistics from that.
Also could be a model for try before you buy. Enter $0 to download, then if you like it go back to “download” again but actually pay, whether that be $5 or $10 or whatever.
On October 1st, 2007 at 3:49 am
kipp said:
I think Radiohead are doing some monumental here, but some people say if they had Radiohead’s money, they wouldn’t care about sales either. There’s a poll on pollsb.com about this new Radiohead move, check it out.
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/2551/radiohead-to-release-new-album-in-rainbows-strictly-online-and-offer-digital-downloads-for-name-your-own-price-donation
On October 1st, 2007 at 6:09 am
Ben said:
The site has a few issues, but other than that it seems like an interesting venture.
On October 1st, 2007 at 7:18 am
Tom said:
i hope when it comes time to release a standard cd version they just do it themselves as well. they have been selling their own merch and tickets (and now this discbox) through their company waste for years now, id imagine they have quite a few employees at this point and probably could easily handle the sales of the standard cd as well.
On October 1st, 2007 at 8:17 am
Jordan Pastepunk said:
The name your price thing really reminds me of a lot of small hardcore shows I went to in college where touring bands would have their self-produced demo/ep/cd-r available for free, but a “donation cup” would be there on the merch table. I know a bunch of bands still do this. I appreciated it b/c if you could figure out how many songs something was or whether or not you were partially committed to checking them out, it was your discretion to calculate all that. I always put in something into the cup, and it was kind of fun to do all of those value judgments.
On October 1st, 2007 at 8:37 am
Gonz said:
i orderd it today…i want the discbox really bad but i dont really have $81 to shell out…so i purchaed the download for like $6.50 even though i work for a label i support what they are doing and with their stature they will be able to stand on their own 2 feet with doing this.
On October 1st, 2007 at 9:50 am
Music Critic said:
This is going to add another dimension to digital distribution. It makes sense. Get rid of the label and distribution and you have the potential of actually making some money. As opposed to the old days when a band saw about $1-2 per $15-20 CD sale. Good work Radiohead!
On October 3rd, 2007 at 10:56 am
Radiohead Opens The Door at Urban Music Strategies said:
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