Tired of being bold and exciting, Radiohead is capping its return to the status quo by finally making the move to iTunes. Everything is available as iTunes Plus, and you can buy tracks a la carte (a first). Was anyone still really waiting for this? [iTunes via TUAW]
Radiohead, wishing to alleviate the guilt of being a rich and famous semi-wielding touring band, has opted to use LED stage lights for their current tour. LED for such purposes is a relatively new phenomenon, as it’s only recently that they’ve become bright enough to have any sort of eye-burning factor. The band is pleased to be wasting less power every performance, but bass player Colin Greenwood pointed out, “It’s very exciting, but without the big Rock Lights it’s going to be fucking freezing onstage.” Though as we understand the rock world, that’s what they make groupies for. [Word]Thanks Mike!
Any hope that the pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows would set a precedent for Radiohead albums of the future has been dashed. Tortured treehugger and all-round good bloke Thom Yorke set the record straight yesterday, calling the band’s decision to let their fans agree on a price on their last release a “one-off.”
The music industry did take something away from Radiohead’s experiment, though it’s not exactly what most of us were hoping for. A senior Universal VP dropped this inspired business idea at Mobile World Congress: “If an artist has just delivered an album from studio, we could potentially deliver it to a limited number of users for a higher price. It’s something we’re quite keen to develop; for example, through our own B2C channels—artists’ Web sites.”
This is the dumbest idea ever.
• The FBI wants to install 150 digital billboards in 20 US cities in the next few weeks to show fugitives, missing people and gadget bloggers. [Network World] • Oft-discussed Radiohead will have a live webcast concert at midnight on January 1. It’s almost cool to stay home on New Year’s Eve now. [Pitchfork] • Google is stuck in patent troll hell with Hyperphase Technologies, LLC. The company claims it holds patents on certain parts of AdSense technology. [The Register] • Yahoo filed a patent for “smart drag-and-drop” technology, which means “displaying drop targets in proximity to a drag-able selected object.” Too bad everything from MS Excel to Apple Mail to Adobe Flash all use similar technology already. [Ars Technica] • Vonage finalised their settlement with AT&T over the former infringing on the latter’s VoIP patents. The settlement is believed to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $US39 million. [CRN]
EMI’s efforts to ride Radiohead’s wave of rainbow-y vibes didn’t stop with their cute but obscenely priced USB drive loaded up with Radiohead’s back catalog. If you Googled “Radiohead” last week, the top ad promised to bring you to a boxset of their new album “Rainbow” (like a bad Chinese knockoff) only to push your browser to EMI’s overpriced back catalog options. Classy! [Guardian via Idolator]
While Radiohead basked in adulation for dipping its toe into the digital future with the pay-what-you-will In Rainbows pre-release, it wasn’t the first major act to toy with the internet model, and certainly wasn’t making a genuine move toward disruption. Had it truly boldly gone where a few have gone before, it potentially stood to lose boatloads of revenues the traditional distribution model guarantees an A-list act. On the other hand, Saul Williams, someone with a lot less to lose, took a dive into the deep end with his release of the Trent-Reznor-produced Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust.
Pearl Jam and The Doors have been offering direct DRM-free MP3 downloads of material for a while now in a mix-and-match format, though not with the highest ease of use factor; Prince just gave his last album away (though not digitally); and Public Enemy’s giving away How You Sell Soul To A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul for free on P2P networks, albeit loaded with ads. And loathe as I am to credit Phish for anything, they directly sold MP3s way back in the Stone Age of 1999.
A recent study conducted by internet research firm comScore claimed that only about 38% of those who downloaded the album In Rainbows actually paid, implying that the band’s pay your own price experiment was a failure. The band responded recently calling this claim “wholly inaccurate,” implying that the folks at comScore are a bunch of morons. A statement issued by the band reveals the whole story:
“In response to purely speculative figures announced in the press regarding the number of downloads and the price paid for the album, the group’s representatives would like to remind people that, as the album could only be downloaded from the band’s website, it is impossible for outside organizations to have accurate figures on sales.”
Good point. I would like to think that Radiohead fans aren’t as cheap as we have been lead to believe. But my question is when are we going to see some official numbers? [e-consultancy via Pocket-Lint]
Data regarding the great Radiohead “pay your own price” experiment for In Rainbows is starting to trickle in, and according to a recent study by internet research firm comScore, only about 38% of those who downloaded the album actually paid. Of those that did pay, Americans averaged $8.05 while fans from other countries averaged only $6 with 17% paying only a penny to $4. Seems low, but it is important to keep in mind that Radiohead could have been earning only a few bucks from every CD sale under the old record label system.
Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor applauded Radiohead for their courage in going forward with the new business model, but he believes that that the low numbers could be partially due to problems with their execution. Problems he hopes to overcome by offering customers the option of paying nothing or $5 for Saul Williams’ new album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust, which he produced. If customers want the free version, they will have to settle for a 192kbps MP3 bitrate which might lure audiophiles to pony up some cash for the 320kbps MP3 or FLAC lossless version. So will a new approach help or are music fans just hopelessly cheap? Only time will tell. [Crave]
Radiohead made waves with their latest album, selling it in digital form for whatever price you wanted to pay for it. Now EMI, their old label, is looking to hop on that bandwagon of goodwill by offering a set of all of the band’s past studio albums and one live album in a number of formats, including uncompressed WAV files on a custom Radiohead Bear USB drive.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 14 years and don’t own a single Radiohead release, now’s your chance to get on board. The first way to buy it is in a set with all seven discs in digipacks with original artwork. That’ll set you back £40, or about $83, which isn’t much of a discount (thanks mostly to the insane exchange rate).
The next option is to buy all seven albums as digital downloads, all encoded as 320kbps MP3s, along with digital artwork. The price for this is an unforgiving £35, or $73.
The last option is probably the most appealing to Radiohead die-hards, as it comes with a limited-edition USB drive. The 4GB drive will come loaded with the seven albums encoded as uncompressed WAV files as well as digital artwork. The price for this “strictly limited edition” piece of hardware? £80, or $167. Yes, $167 for a thumb drive loaded up with WAV files.
So, how many of these sets do you think EMI will sell? You’ve got to appreciate the choice of encoding options, but those prices are beyond insane. And the real problem is that only the most devoted of fans would even consider spending this kind of coin on RH materials, and they obviously own all the back catalogue already. So, uh, what the hell, EMI? [Product Page]
