As the January 3rd release date of the compact-disc version of Radiohead’s In Rainbows draws nearer, several artists have finally elected to open up about Rainbows‘ creative marketing strategy. (Or rather, how Radiohead pissed them off by thinking outside the box.) First up, the immutable Lily Allen, who calls Radiohead “arrogant.” “Theyve got millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who havent done as well,” Allen reasoned. “You dont choose how to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?ā€¯ Little does Allen know, you do choose how to pay for eggs. You can use cash or credit, or checks if you have photo ID. We could discuss supply and demand and how bands make money off live shows and merch sales, but until Lily Allen can find us an egg that wrote “Paranoid Android,” we’re not even starting that fight.
Next up is Oasis’ Liam Gallagher, who denies the reports that followed Radiohead’s September 30th announcement that indicated Oasis would try a similar scheme for their next album. Gallagher insists that he would never give away an Oasis album for free, and that something like that would only happen “over my dead body.” Even Kiss’ Gene Simmons took time out of his busy writing-about-prostitutes schedule to intelligently discuss Radiohead’s course. “That’s not a business model that works. I open a store and say ‘Come on in and pay whatever you want.’ Are you on ****ing crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?” The outburst also spurred Simmons to ask his lawyers if he could produce Kiss-branded crack. Simmons does kind of ask an interesting question: Is this a business model that works? We won’t know until either Radiohead reveals how much money they made from their “pay-what-you-want” plan or the week after the CD hits stores and we get our hands on the charts.
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