Radiohead - What will the fans (market) do?
October 7, 2007
I think this article: Radiohead bets on fast release, open pricing is another indicator of the music industry creaking at the seams. However, the line “It’s up to you” is a challenge to the public to embrace the independent artist’s new business model. It’s telling the audience to be honest about downloading and those who would contemplate simply taking it for free simply because they can, should consider well what they may be doing to the future of music and the industry of art & entertainment.
The question we should ask is: Are the public–the fans–as dishonest and corrupt as the industry itself, or are they truly loyal (and honest) fans who want to support the independence of artists whose talent and products they enjoy?
I think Radiohead are asking that question with “It’s up to you” which is really, another way of asking “Given the opportunity to steal, to take without fair payment, are you a thief?” it’s too bad they’re not publshing the figures as they occur, for the results would be very interesting. What Radiohead is doing is similar to Stephen King’s e-Book download experiment.
Email this article to a friend - or a nemesis, it doesn't bother us.
Subscribe now to receive notification of new Free Articulator articles like this one.
[…] Capturing Everyday Moments wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt I think this article: Radiohead bets on fast release, open pricing is another indicator of the music industry creaking at the seams. However, the line “It’s up to you” is a challenge to the public to embrace the independent artist’s new business model. It’s telling the audience to be honest about downloading and those who would contemplate simply […]
Hm, and here I was just going to download it for nothing. Didn’t even think of all this though. :/
This was a very smart idea in many senses, mainly the fact they got exposure on a scale that many big name labels would be hard to match.
Big name labels are penny-counters, greedy and cowardly; they don’t have the creativity to come up with something like this that would garner instant worldwide attention well before the album’s official release date. Leave it to the artists to come up with the best marketing ideas!
Thanks for your comments guys. I think Radiohead, having established their career, are like Prince, and others in a place with relationship to the public where they can leverage their position in terms of fame to achieve a measure of independence. If they didn’t have the audience though, what then?
The biggest challenge facing any artist is this: How do you build a loyal international audience from scratch without the help of the big companies? Because all artists start with no audience. Once you have that audience this ‘Radiohead strategy’ can take one into the zone of independent sustainable career. But Radiohead is should be remembered have broken away from the record company. That they are doing this and being so public about it, is inspiring.
the musicindustry is booming you know..
it’s only less visible. Ok the big labels suffer some loss.
But the small labels have their audience and are most of the time honest people. small labels means, that people who get to know that label are really searching for music and do it for the love of music..
now the fact that radiohead released their new album is indeed an experiment. I know a lot of people who downloaded it for free or bought the box of 58 euro’s .
Me? I downloaded it for free, because i want to get to know the music first before i buy it.. my own try then buy policy.
Hi Dsudorion, good to see you here at the Free Articulator. In some respects you are right, the music industry is booming. But I wouldn’t say that of the entire industry. The facts and figures reported by the Traditional industry say that it is in decline. Their own press releases and other media reports also say it is in decline. So I’m not sure which part of the industry you’re referring to.
The Independent Music Industry is growing, and in particular the Independent Online Industry is closing. Independent record labels have formed a coalition and they now represent nearly 30% of the industry (hmmm…is that the online independent radio industry or the record labels?) I’m not sure (IR2F). But most bands are forming their own labels. Many are seeking to repeat successes they’ve read about.
But I’m interested, what are you basing your “industry is booming” statement on?
Well it’s just like you said, the independent music industry.
i can give you some examples. http://www.kraak.net they often do events such as pauze festival at the vooruit http://www.vooruit.be http://www.fonal.com a finnish recordlabel that’s gaining name. http://www.warprecords.com started out as a techno shop and has gained reputation all over the world. http://www.marriagerecs.com can count as one of the many small independent labels on the web.
“specialised music” has become more reachable with the introduction of the internet. But I think you can’t reasamble the music industry of 15 years ago with the one we now have. In a way everybody, you and me, can release an album. Everybody can start a label such as marriagerecords.
and it might work out just fine. But not with major profits.
Maybe i’m wrong about the “independent” music industry is booming.. But i’m pretty sure the artist has a bigger chance to get known.
let me give you an example: venetian snares, a breakcore-drill’n bass band shared their music to the public on a program called soulseek. So it got spread around on many people’s computers.. some day it reached the creator of http://www.planet-mu.com -. He was really wild of this music and decided to get them on their label. My point is that musicsharing also has it’s positive sides.
a friend of mine started for example a little label, he presses his own cd-r’s and creates the artwork for thoses album’s. always released in very small numbers. the artist he recently made one for is bear bones, lay low. 90% of the people wont know this name, but if you’re a reader of gonzocircus.com or http://www.thewire.co.uk then i’m sure his name will have popped up. I think he released about 80 albums.. it took him only 2 months to sell 75% procent of his releases. I think he released it on brainwashed.com/vtb
Now that i think of it. You could reasamble the major musicindustry with microsoft and maybe Mac OS. When they have losses because their software is illegally used you only hear their voice.. But what about those other voices? it’s all getting pointed in one direction. There are more people who are passionate about music then ever before. If i look at my friends, who also are very passionate, then i can say that their CD and vinyl collection is rather big . you could do a research on this actually. Who isn’t buying music and what kind of people are these? Is culture important to them, do they visit performances of these artists? Are they moved by their music, if so why don’t they buy it? Another major thing is economy.. they want the moneymachine to become bigger and bigger.. Maybe this is the point where the machine breaks down. The moneymachine can’t keep growing and growing..
hmm i think i can fill pages about this… feel free to react!
small correction the previous post.. the cd he released is right here http://www.volcanictongue.com/artist.php?art=Bear%20Bones%20Lay%20Low label: agnus dei
[…] maybe, NDK was right when he proposed that Radiohead were really asking their fans: given the opportunity to steal from […]