In Rainbow$$$$$$$$$$$$

When Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows, just three days after the final mix was completed, nobody was going to the stores to pick up a copy. The band decided to put the album online, available as a download. The most surprising detail to this decision is that the band allowed customers the choice to pay whatever they wanted. If you so desired, you could download the album for $0.00. There were no review copies shipped to the press beforehand which means the fans were able to pass judgment at the same time the media got access themselves.

There were many interesting speculations and judgments being made the day before the 'leak date'. Examples include:
"What a bunch of pretentious communists. Are they trying to say they're better than everybody?"
"This is going to spark a music revolution!"
"This is a conspiracy. I bet Thom Yorke (lead singer of Radiohead) got paid a shit load of money to do this as a ploy. They've totally sold out."

The truth is, it was one of the band's managers, Chris Hufford, who pushed for the band to allow fans to choose the price. Radiohead is not a group of communists, nor were they intending to spark a revolution against major labels. Whether or not this was merely a marketing strategy, is up for debate.

In a recent interview, Wired magazine asked David Byrne (of Talking Heads) to sit down with Yorke and discuss the state of the music biz. When Yorke was asked why their recent marketing strategy was successful he had this to say,
"The only reason we could even get away with this, the only reason anyone even gives a shit, is the fact that we've gone through the whole mill of the business in the first place. It's not supposed to be a model for anything else. It was simply a response to a situation. We're out of contract. We have our own studio. We have this new server. What the hell else would we do? This was the obvious thing. But it only works for us because of where we are."

Radiohead signed a six album recording contract with EMI (one of the largest record companies in the world) in 1991 after the band was fresh out of highschool. Throughout these six releases the band received lots of critical acclaim, a steady fanbase, even a Grammy. But they were having serious problems with their label. Their problems were typical of those many bands face when signing a major label contract early in their career. Radiohead did not have the rights to their material and were not in control of their financial earnings. They left the label in 2003, after their 6th album, and did not release In Rainbows until 2007, releasing it themselves.

In terms of digital income, Radiohead has made more money on the current album then any of the 6 previous albums combined. 60% of the downloads were purchased at an average of $6.

What did the fans think of the new album and marketing strategy once it was 'leaked'?
MTV put out an article October 7, 2007, one month after its release.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1571737/20071011/radiohead.jhtml

From the article, I learned that Radiohead released the digital In Rainbows at 160kbps (what the hell that really means I'm not an expert of) whereas their cd releases and all other digital relases are available at 320kbps. This basically means, people who bought the actual cd when it was released early 2008, or shelled out $80 last year to get a boxed set that contained the first hard copy version of the album, got a SLIGHTLY better sound quality version.

Does it matter?

Many fans were upset by this and felt duped that the band would be getting credit for doing such a revolutionary act for its fans. The band's managers don't seem to be helping the situation either, especially after a quote from manager Bryce Edge was 'leaked.' He is quoted as saying that "CDs are a fantastic bit of kit. ... You can't listen to a Radiohead record on MP3 and hear the detail; it's impossible." Fans were beginning to feel as though they were being manipulated.

Does it matter?

All of this leads me to raise questions about authenticity. What are fans really buying when they purchase an album? Is it a matter of music appreciation, or do fans want to be sold something that has been packaged with seemingly authentic intentions? I'm thinking about the Scholes' essay Just Looking. I wonder how many people purchase albums because the band and its music seem to fit into a cultural category they want to identify with more than because of the musical aesthetics. When people listen to music, are they actually hearing the music?

*****(itunes gives potential buyers exactly 30 seconds of each song to determine whether or not they like what they hear. When did this become adequate time to decide?)*****

I remember when a group in our class was presenting a video analysis of a Three Doors Down video used as an advertisement for the National Guard. Several of the group's members made sure to announce to the class that they did not listen to or were not familiar with the band they were giving their presentation about. I found this interesting. Why disclose this to the class? For many, music is a large factor in shaping personal identity, myself included. For the most part, I don't think the members in that group said this because they are genuinely concerned about what the rest of the class thinks of them. I do recognize it as a way of reinforcing one's identity. We do it all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not.

What does this have to do with In Rainbows? No matter what Radiohead does, their identity is a commodity and the judgments made about their music has as much to do with what they've come to represent as it does about what they create. Similar to our own identities and judgments made about each other, no?

You can read the article here:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke