Earlier this week, we all became witness to one of the biggest gambles in music industry history. This gamble is of course the landmark decision by Radiohead to offer their newest album, In Rainbows, as a digital download less than two weeks after the project was announced as completed for whatever price the consumer chooses.
In an age where album leaks have become an industry standard and CD sales are slumping, Radiohead is attempting to buck the trend by trying something completely radical and unprecedented. They will also be selling a box set to come out in early 2008 for 40£.
Or are they trying to buck the trend? The move is unprecedented and is something that has never before happened in the music industry. We’ve seen bands like Stars offer their album months early digitally for download and The Format give away Dog Problems as a download earlier this year, but never a band that has the immense fan base as Radiohead. It is completely possible that rather than try to increase sales of the album, they are attempting to expose their music to as wide an audience as possible.
There is no way to predict exactly what is going to happen, but we at Absolutepunk.net would like to know--what kind of impact you think this will have on the music industry?
If you are interested in buying this album or have already bought this album, what price would you pay? Other questions concerning this release deal with chart eligibility, as it is still unknown what will happen to the release in terms of making it on Billboard’s charts. Does this even matter to the band or will it have an effect on the sales?
Radiohead also has not announced a label for this release. Do labels mean anything to artists like this? Do you think that this could possibly be the turning point for artists to go truly independent of record labels? Or is this type of release only possible because Radiohead already has enough money and a solid enough audience that the album sales success does not matter? Where does the music industry go after this?
For the second part of this topic, offering In Rainbows as a digital download and allowing consumers to name the price for it is the ultimate in fan appreciation. If your favorite band did the same, how much would you pay for it? Would you be more interested in checking out new artists if you could download it legally at your own price?
More...
In an age where album leaks have become an industry standard and CD sales are slumping, Radiohead is attempting to buck the trend by trying something completely radical and unprecedented. They will also be selling a box set to come out in early 2008 for 40£.
Or are they trying to buck the trend? The move is unprecedented and is something that has never before happened in the music industry. We’ve seen bands like Stars offer their album months early digitally for download and The Format give away Dog Problems as a download earlier this year, but never a band that has the immense fan base as Radiohead. It is completely possible that rather than try to increase sales of the album, they are attempting to expose their music to as wide an audience as possible.
There is no way to predict exactly what is going to happen, but we at Absolutepunk.net would like to know--what kind of impact you think this will have on the music industry?
If you are interested in buying this album or have already bought this album, what price would you pay? Other questions concerning this release deal with chart eligibility, as it is still unknown what will happen to the release in terms of making it on Billboard’s charts. Does this even matter to the band or will it have an effect on the sales?
Radiohead also has not announced a label for this release. Do labels mean anything to artists like this? Do you think that this could possibly be the turning point for artists to go truly independent of record labels? Or is this type of release only possible because Radiohead already has enough money and a solid enough audience that the album sales success does not matter? Where does the music industry go after this?
For the second part of this topic, offering In Rainbows as a digital download and allowing consumers to name the price for it is the ultimate in fan appreciation. If your favorite band did the same, how much would you pay for it? Would you be more interested in checking out new artists if you could download it legally at your own price?
More...
