Radiohead

Radiohead - Stop Whispering (Limited Edition)

2009-05-28T08:28:00.000-07:00

Radiohead - Stop Whispering (Limited Edition)

1. Stop Whispering 4:12
2. Creep (Acoustic) 4:21
3. Pop Is Dead 2:14
4. Inside My Head (Live) 3:05

E-readers should be celebrated by publishers: internet expert

2009-05-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

MARK COLVIN: Over the last decade and a half the World Wide Web has revolutionised huge areas of life.

And that revolution is continuing to cause upheaval in all kinds of businesses.

The music and film industries are fighting what looks like a rearguard action against illegal downloading, while a whole generation becomes accustomed to the idea that all kinds of content should be free.

Newspapers are on the ropes, many caught between their own massive debts and the loss of the rivers of gold they used to get from classified advertising.

It feels to some as though industries are being swept away, and the jobs and profits that went with them too.

Lawrence Lessig is Professor of Law at Stanford in the US, and he's strongly identified with the camp that welcomes the freedom of the internet.

I asked him this afternoon if the widespread transition to free downloading was going to go on causing crises in a number of industries.

LAWRENCE LESSIG: Yeah. But what is causing the crises in this context is just people choosing to consume or to get access to content differently. So, we used to have a world where you know, there were a couple of major media outlets that basically controlled the audience; that doesn't exist anymore.

We have a very fragmented audience, people have very different tastes, they consume lots of different kinds of music. The diversity of content that they get access to is much higher today than it was 20 years ago.

Now that hurts some people but it helps a whole bunch of other people. There are more people making money on music today than there were 20 years ago and that's because digital technologies has increased the diversity and availability of this content in ways that make diverse content happy and mainstream content less happy.

MARK COLVIN: How can you say... what figures do you have to back that up?

LAWRENCE LESSIG: Well if you, there's work done by a researcher from the Consumers Union in the United States, Mark Cooper, who studied the distribution of sales of music on iTunes and the kind of content that gets distributed and the actual source revenue that goes back to artists and what he's showing is that the number of artists who are making money on music today is higher than it was; he's talking less than 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

Now of course the amount of money that Britney Spears is making or Madonna is making is less than what they were making before but I'm not sure we should be troubled by the fact that multi-millionaires are making less than multi-millions, maybe only one million, we should be more excited by the fact that there are more people who are actually able to make money with their music than was possible 10 years ago.

MARK COLVIN: Is it also going more to the artists and less to the record companies? Is that why we hear such angry noises from the record companies?

LAWRENCE LESSIG: Yeah. The record companies' business model - which was every couple of years selling a new platform for the same music; so records and then cassettes tapes and then CDs, then DVDs - that business model is over and they don't like the fact that they don't have this comfortable happy business model.

And you know I understand that; I have tenure, I would be very upset if somebody took away my tenure, and they had a kind of business tenure.

But just because that particular kind of business model is finished it doesn't mean that artists are finished. Obviously artists will continue forever and they'll have different ways of making money with their art and what we're seeing is many more artists who are going directly to their fans and making money directly from their fans.

So artists like Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead or Girl Talk; these are artists who have an enormous fan base, they make their music available, Girl talk and Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails all make their music available freely for people to download if they'd like but they also have the option of buying it.

These people make, and you know Radiohead made $1.6-million in one week selling their latest album that was also available for free to download. The number one download on Mp3salem MP3 last year was a Creative Commons licensed track that was available for free as well as to be bought.

So these are artists who are experimenting with different ways to succeed in their business and it might not make record companies happy but I think that diversity is something we should be celebrating.

MARK COLVIN: There's a whole bunch of e-readers coming out - ones called the Kindle - they're ways of reading books electronically. Are they going to wreck the publishing industry the way that free music has wrecked the record industry?

LAWRENCE LESSIG: No not at all. So the Kindle, I have a Kindle, is early stage technology for replacing the physically printed books. Now, as somebody who writes books, I believe books are an essential part to understanding culture. Right, there are some things you can't explain in 10 seconds or in 800 words.

So we've got to find a way to make books relevant, so the Kindle makes it much easier to get access to this content. There's actually a very interesting text reading facility built into the books so that you can listen to your book as you're driving to work or as you're riding on the train and so that's making that form of expression accessible in the digital age, and I think that's an important part of keeping it relevant.

If we didn't do that, then people would read fewer books, they would spend more time reading blogs or spend more time doing Twitter and things like that.

MARK COLVIN: But you're going to be able to download free books presumably onto your Kindle pretty soon aren't you? In just the same way that...

LAWRENCE LESSIG: No the Kindle's actually much more heavily controlled in this sense than the Internet was. So the Kindle, you can only get content into the Kindle in certain channels and the Kindle controls the copy protection technology to block the ability to easily download content onto your Kindle.

MARK COLVIN: But just like the iPod - and there were other MP3 players - there will be other e-readers than the Kindle and people will start stealing books won't they?

LAWRENCE LESSIG: I'm sure people will start stealing books, but the question is do book publishers benefit from a world where people can get access to books more easily, even if they're stealing more books in that world than they would in a world where the only way we get access to the books is the way that we did in 1975?

And I think the answer is book publishers are going to be better off in the world of Kindle, even if more people are downloading stuff illegally, than they would be if they continued to try to preserve the world of 1975.

MARK COLVIN: Are you optimistic about the electronic future?

LAWRENCE LESSIG: Overall I think there's certain things that I'm worried about and many more things that I'm very optimistic about.

I'm very worried about journalism as I said; real true investigative journalism. I think you know blogs provide some part of that but certainly nothing to the level of what we need.

On the other hand, a lot of people are sceptical whether even today we have that kind of journalism in the broad street press and so I might be over emphasising this concern. But that's one thing I'm concerned about.

But I am extremely optimistic about the future of the arts, not the record companies but the arts; the ability of people to create and share their creativity and to profit from their creativity I think is greater now than it certainly seemed possible even just 10 years ago and that's something that we need to be encouraging and we need to encourage it by making it possible for more people to do this legally.

You know, one of the features of copyright law that I'm working so hard to change is the way in which it criminalises behaviour that is creative behaviour. I'm not talking about people downloading content illegally, I'm talking about people remixing or making content, making new content which is just regulated under the existing law in a way that renders it illegal. And there's no reason for the law to do that, it's just a by-product of it being an archaic law applied to digital technologies and we should be changing it so that we can be encouraging and teaching our kids how to use this technology legally.

Radiohead // How To Disappear Completely [Video]

2009-05-28T08:22:00.001-07:00

If Free is the Enemy of Good, Then Color Me Bad

2009-05-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

Paul McGuinness, manager of U2, has found a new enemy of music artists and creativity in general: free. After firing against hippy technology and internet executives back in January 2008, he turned to ISPs, calling them shoplifters, going so far as to elicit an apology from Bono, who distanced himself and the band from McGuinness’ statements.

Now, he’s given a rather mellow interview to Cnet, partly contradicting his earlier statements (he criticized Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” business model earlier, but now claims he admires “what Radiohead have done tremendously in seeking a new model”), and partly repeating his earlier claims (with a bit more tact, this time) that the Internet should be regulated and monitored, and that the ISPs should be forced to do it.

However, he manages to step in it again, ending the interview with a very interesting statement: Ultimately, he says, free is the enemy of good.”

This sentence shows that he simply has no idea (actually, I don’t believe that; I think he’s merely refusing to admit the obvious) about how business works. In any business, there’s a lot of things that are provided free to the customer. Your ISP probably provides free 24 hour phone and email support to you. In your local supermarket, you can sample various products, like cheese or cosmetics, for free. Some companies provide free WiFi coverage around their headquarters. The list goes on. Free is an essential component of every business, and free does not mean “without value.”

Now, if an ISP wants to start charging for customer support, they’re welcome to try. They’re also welcome to file for bankruptcy when all of their customers move to another, friendlier ISP. The entertainment industry is welcome to try and charge (and even McGuinness admits that they’ve been charging way too much) for easily duplicated digital goods, such as MP3s, lyrics, tabs etc. But if they don’t provide enough added value to the customer, they’ll go out of business. If, however, they embrace free - and we now have many great examples of how free content can be used to promote scarce goods - and try to figure out new business models which Internet has unlocked, they will thrive.

Rollo & Grady // Wednesday Covers

2009-05-28T08:10:00.001-07:00

MP3: Ryan Adams - Everything In Its Right Place (Radiohead Cover)
MP3: The Strokes with Eddie Vedder - Mercy Mercy Me (Marvin Gaye Cover)

Radiohead // How To Disappear Completely [Video]

2009-05-28T08:07:00.001-07:00

How Radiohead’s Business Model Shook Up the Music Industry

2009-05-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Greg Kot’s new book, Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music (Scribner, $25). Ripped tells the story of a new grassroots music industry, created by the laptop generation, with the fans and bands in charge. In this excerpt, Radiohead reinvents the way in which it distributes music directly to its fans.

Whenever he considered the possibility of Radiohead going into business for itself, guitarist Jonny Greenwood got a little queasy. “It makes me think we’re gonna be sitting in endless business meetings talking about how to do it off our own backs, rather than sitting in studios recording music.”
cover art
Greg Kot
Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
(Scribner; US: May 2009)
Amazon

But Radiohead was genuinely unsettled by what it saw as the major labels’ inability to adapt to the marketplace. The long lag time imposed by the majors between finishing an album and actually releasing it to set up a proper big-budget marketing campaign was particularly irritating. The band appreciated that its fans were almost ridiculously vigilant. As soon as word would get out that Radiohead had finished working on an album, the Internet began to buzz with anticipation. A leak of the new music would inevitably follow, and Radiohead fans were soon sharing the music and debating its merits.

Inevitably, Web sites would jump in with their critiques of the still-unreleased work.

It was flattering and yet frustrating for the band; increasingly, they sensed the problem was not with the fans, but with their label’s inability to keep up with how fans were consuming music.

By the fall of 2007, Radiohead had a new album ready to go, but still hadn’t pulled the trigger on any kind of record deal. It decided to release the album anyway, through its Web site. On Oct. 1, Jonny Greenwood posted a terse announcement on radiohead.com: “Well, the new album is finished, and it’s coming out in 10 days. We’ve called it In Rainbows.”

So much for the big marketing plan. In the land of the major labels, Greenwood would’ve been drummed out of the public-relations academy for his utter offhandedness. For an artist of Radiohead’s stature, it was customary for a big label to plot out the details of an album months in advance, to line up shelf space at retail stores, programming at commercial radio, and full-page ads and interviews in Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the usual print-media suspects. But for the first time in its existence, Radiohead had no such constraints. It could now effectively function as its own record company, record store, and distribution service rolled into one — at least temporarily. So Radiohead instructed its fans that on Oct. 10, it would provide an access code to a digital download of the new album to any customer willing to part with an e-mail address.

The price was left to the customer’s discretion, the virtual equivalent of a giant tip jar.

“It’s up to you,” the checkout screen read for preordering the 10-song disc.

Also available to order was an expanded, physical version of the album, to ship two months later. Priced at the U.S. equivalent of $81, it would include an 18-track double album packaged in both CD and vinyl versions, with lyrics, artwork, and photographs in a hardback book and slipcase.

Radiohead’s distribution strategy for In Rainbows reduced the decade-long debate over Internet downloading to a single, deceptively simple question: “What’s this piece of music really worth to you?” It was a question that respected the intelligence of the potential buyer, a question that bristled with moral, ethical, economic and aesthetic considerations. And yet it was a question that could be answered with a simple mouse click, in prices ranging from $0.00 to $99.99 (the order form didn’t accommodate three-digit dollar figures).

It was a brilliant move made even more potent by its timing. Only a week before, a federal jury in Minnesota had awarded the record industry a $220,000 judgment against Jammie Thomas for the crime of downloading 24 copyrighted songs and making them available for file sharing. Thomas was hardly alone. At the very moment her verdict was being read, more than 9 million consumers were sharing music files around America, according to media management company BigChampagne.

As one of the more marketable names in the business, Radiohead was in a position where it didn’t have to give away anything. It had the cachet to charge $10 or more for its music, and rest assured that most of its fans would gladly pay. But it clearly wanted no part of a music industry that labels its own customers as thieves. By declaring, “It’s up to you,” Radiohead made it clear whose side it was on.

The Internet exploded with Radiohead-related chatter. In the three days after the announcement, blogpulse.com, a search engine that reports on daily blog activity, showed more than a 1,300 percent increase in the number of posts mentioning the band.

The behind-the-scenes mechanics of the deal were intriguing, all the more so because Radiohead really wasn’t interested in talking about them—perhaps because it might’ve appeared unseemly to gloat. The band stood to profit handsomely from any paid download.

What’s more, they didn’t have to share the money with any middlemen.

Ken Waagner, the tech guru for Wilco, estimated that Radiohead spent $5,000 to $10,000 to process the flood of orders and downloads on its Web site. Those distribution costs are minimal compared with what pioneers such as Prince faced a decade ago when fans ordered CDs from his Web site. Rather than e-mailing a code to customers leading them to a download page, Prince had to manufacture, package, and ship CDs, and struggled to keep up with demand.

Prince, like Radiohead, was able to pull it off because he had a large fan base for his music built up over years of promotion and marketing by a major label before he went into business for himself. This factor often was overlooked in media coverage of Radiohead’s new business model, but it was critical to its success.

“Radiohead’s developed a pretty good brand name over the years,” Allman Brothers Band manager Bert Holman says.

“There’s artistic merit, but they also had a major label doing a lot of marketing for them. They’re in a position where, of course, they can do something like this. And so could a few others—U2, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews. These are bands that benefited from the old system. But it’s not really applicable to reinventing the music business.”

Radiohead didn’t want to lead a revolution. Its goal was far more modest: to leak its own album, give fans a taste of the new music, and invite them to buy the sonically superior physical product once it became available in a few months. If the band screwed up, it was in offering In Rainbows in the form of relatively low-fidelity 160 kilobits per second MP3s.

A year after the release of In Rainbows, the big numbers started to roll in. The album had sold 3 million copies, including downloads from radiohead.com, according to the band’s publisher, Warner/Chappell.

The sales from the band’s Web site alone exceeded the total sales for the band’s previous album, Hail to the Thief. The figures included 100,000 limited-edition box sets, sold at the U.S. equivalent of $81—an $8 million haul, with the band keeping most of the profits. The publicity windfall helped ensure one of the most successful tours of 2008, with the band playing to 1.2 million fans.

It was an impressive accomplishment, if only an intriguing first step in a new direction for the business as a whole. This revolution, as successful as it was, could have used a few tweaks: the low-bit-rate digital release was slipshod; after two months, the Radiohead Web site stopped offering the name-your-price MP3 files; and the band ended up tying its fate to a traditional record label (albeit an independent one) rather than pioneering a new marketplace dynamic.

Radiohead Recording New Album?

2009-05-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

According to an interview with BBC News, which can be found here, Radiohead’s bassist Colin Greenwood stated that the Oxford band are back in the studio with long-time producer, Nigel Godrich. “We just went in last week,” Greenwood said, “It was really good. It was really noisy and chaotic and really fun.” Radiohead getting louder? Sounds great.

This would be a quick return for the band after the four year layoff between Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows. That 2007 album was everyone’s-including this site-favorite album of the year. After rumors circulated that their managers encouraged the band to break-up during the recording of In Rainbows, anything new by everyone’s favorite band is great news to report.

Post War Years at Worcester's Marr's Bar

2009-05-27T09:28:00.001-07:00

POST War Years, fresh from supporting MGMT and White Lies on tour, will be the next band taking to the stage at Worcester’s Marr’s Bar as part of Sorry About the Golf Clubs.

The band-night is run by Malvern Wells singer-songwriter Sam Isaac and his bandmate Burt Hill and regularly features a variety of indie up-and-comers Described as creating “an avante-garde twist on math-rock”, Post War Years have just released their debut album and will play the Pierpoint Street venue as part of a national tour.

Their album, the Greats and The Happenings, was produced by Graeme Stewart, who engineered Radiohead’s album In Rainbows and worked with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood on his recent solo projects.

Support comes from local talent including Worcester’s Theo, a one man music machine, blending guitar loops with drumming, Wes Dance, a Golf Clubs’ favourite from Worcester, and Malvern’s Michael Mann, who has just released his debut album Cryptic Stuff and will open proceedings with his piano-led pop.

Tickets for the show are available in advance for £5 from wegottickets.com or prcied at £6 on the door. Doors are at 8pm. Entry is strictly 16 and over with ID.

Happy Birthday! Phil Selway

2009-05-27T09:27:00.001-07:00

Happy 42nd birthday to Phil Selway, iconic drummer for Radiohead! Selway's grooves and rhythms have set the stage for forging Radiohead's dynamic sounds, and his drumming has become more and more prominent as Radiohead has progressed. He had a few particularly striking tracks on the band's latest, In Rainbows, and he may be featured even more on upcoming albums. Selway has also worked with 7 Worlds Collide with bandmate Ed O'Brien, where he made his singing debut as well. He had also sung backing vocals on a few songs for Radiohead, most notably "There There" off Hail to the Thief. Hopefully he and his bandmates will continue making exciting, groundbreaking music for many years to come, as Radiohead is showing no signs of slowing down.

Suggested Listening: Xu Xu Fang

2009-05-27T09:26:00.001-07:00

California’s Xu Xu Fang are new to me, but I can see what so many people have liked about them so far. Featuring Bobby Tamkin (The Warlocks, Hovercraft), and Barbara Cohen, who sang with French band, Air, Xu Xu Fang is a 6-10 piece (it fluxuates apparently) experimental psychedelic rock band that brings Black Sabbath to Radiohead to Sigur Ros and it actually works out great. In 2008 they released a CD/EP The Mourning Son and it received a good amount of praise. Now they’ve released another EP, Seven Days Now and I’m loving it up. The EP starts off in high fashion with a dynamite cover of The Cure’s “Fascination Street” that moves, sways, and ends up sounding a lot like Black Moth Super Rainbow (which is definitely a good thing in my book). Then the title track “Seven Days Now” comes in with a slow somber break down to lead you into the stunning “Your Way” which garners their comparison to Radiohead and Sigur Ros. This is a band to keep an eye on for sure.

mp3: Xu Xu Fang - Fascination Street (The Cure Cover)

mp3: Xu Xu Fang - Your Way

Book excerpt: How Radiohead upturned the music industry

2009-05-27T09:25:00.001-07:00

Band's 'In Rainbows' a novel experiment in self-distribution

Whenever he considered the possibility of Radiohead going into business for itself, guitarist Jonny Greenwood got a little queasy: "It makes me think we're gonna be sitting in endless business meetings talking about how to do it off our own backs, rather than sitting in studios recording music."

But Radiohead was genuinely unsettled by what it saw as the major labels' inability to adapt to the marketplace. The long lag time imposed by the majors between finishing an album and actually releasing it to set up a proper big-budget marketing campaign was particularly irritating. The band appreciated that its fans were almost ridiculously vigilant.

As soon as word would get out that Radiohead had finished working on an album, the Internet began to buzz with anticipation. A leak of the new music would inevitably follow, and Radiohead fans were soon sharing the music and debating its merits.

Inevitably, Web sites would jump in with their critiques of the still-unreleased work.

It was flattering and yet frustrating for the band; increasingly, they sensed the problem was not with the fans, but with their label's inability to keep up with how fans were consuming music.

By the fall of 2007, Radiohead had a new album ready to go, but still hadn't pulled the trigger on any kind of record deal. It decided to release the album anyway, through its Web site. On Oct. 1, Jonny Greenwood posted a terse announcement on radiohead.com: "Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days. We've called it In Rainbows."

So much for the big marketing plan.

In the land of the major labels, Greenwood would've been drummed out of the public-relations academy for his utter offhandedness. For an artist of Radiohead's stature, it was customary for a big label to plot out the details of an album months in advance, to line up shelf space at retail stores, programming at commercial radio, and full-page ads and interviews in Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the usual print-media suspects.

But for the first time in its existence, Radiohead had no such constraints. It could now effectively function as its own record company, record store, and distribution service rolled into one -- at least temporarily.

So Radiohead instructed its fans that on Oct. 10, it would provide an access code to a digital download of the new album to any customer willing to part with an e-mail address.

The price was left to the customer's discretion, the virtual equivalent of a giant tip jar.

"It's up to you," the checkout screen read for preordering the 10-song disc.

Also available to order was an expanded, physical version of the album, to ship two months later. Priced at the U.S. equivalent of $81, it would include an 18-track double album packaged in both CD and vinyl versions, with lyrics, artwork, and photographs in a hardback book and slipcase.

Radiohead's distribution strategy for In Rainbows reduced the decade-long debate over Internet downloading to a single, deceptively simple question: "What's this piece of music really worth to you?"

It was a question that respected the intelligence of the potential buyer, a question that bristled with moral, ethical, economic and aesthetic considerations. And yet it was a question that could be answered with a simple mouse click, in prices ranging from $0.00 to $99.99 (the order form didn't accommodate three-digit dollar figures).

A year after the release of In Rainbows, the big numbers started to roll in. The album had sold 3 million copies, including downloads from radiohead.com, according to the band's publisher, Warner/Chappell.

The sales from the band's Web site alone exceeded the total sales for the band's previous album, Hail to the Thief. The figures included 100,000 limited-edition box sets, sold at the U.S. equivalent of $81 -- an $8 million haul, with the band keeping most of the profits.

[HD] Radiohead - Bodysnatchers Live

2009-05-27T09:21:00.001-07:00

Radiohead Returns To The Studio

2009-05-25T16:30:00.001-07:00

Rejoice

Thanks to The FMLY for the heads up about this monumental news.

Here’s a link to their write up as well as the interview in which bassist Colin Greenwood spilt the beans regarding the new project…

BBC Interview w/ Colin Greenwood

FMLY Article

Radiohead in the studio, David Byrne releases/streams new live benefit EP, and another new Regina Spektor song

2009-05-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

Radiohead have gone back into the studio to start work on the follow-up to their 2007 album In Rainbows.
"We just went in last week," bassist Colin Greenwood said. "It was really good. It was really noisy and chaotic and really fun."

But the group do not have fully formed songs yet, he said.

"We're at the stage where we've got the big Lego box out and we've tipped it out on the floor and we're looking at all the bits and thinking, what next?"

The new album, which will be their eighth, will again see producer Nigel Godrich work with the band. [BBC]

Listen to a new Regina Spektor song above. Listen to a new David Byrne EP below...

----

actually, because the David Byrne EP starts playing automatically, i removed it. Listen to it HERE. Read about it below....

Some time ago Amnesty International asked if I might do "something" for that organization this year- (in previous years I had done one of my tour dates as a benefit for them). Amnesty has such an amazing and consistent track record of speaking out and helping to illuminate courageous people who might otherwise not be heard from so the answer was "yes." It was decided to record some songs from my current tour for them to be sold as a download with the proceeds going to Amnesty. As there are no physical costs with digital distribution this means more of the sales percentage actually goes to where it's supposed to. So, thank you for supporting a great organization and I hope you like these recordings too. They will be available exclusively here on Monday, 5/11/09.

The tour isn't over yet. It has been exhilarating for all the musicians, singers, dancers and the crew as well - so we all voted to keep rolling on through summer 09. On these live shows I decided to use the connection of Brian Eno- as a collaborator, producer or musician- as the thread that links some material from the past with a group of songs done last year. Most of the time music listeners are blissfully unaware of the contributions of a record producer, and sometimes even of which musicians who play on a record as well...so the Eno linking device might not be as self evident as I imagine. However, the device also allowed me to include a fair number of songs in the live set that people are somewhat familiar with, which wasn't exactly accidental.

For me, there are rhythmic and structural links between the older material and the new- though there are lyrical and melodic differences too that I, at least, can hear. Those musical parallels help the live show maintain some kind of musical thematic unity- they help the show from becoming a random hodge podge of songs. I've even heard someone say to us backstage that they felt the show tells a story. They didn't elaborate as to what kind of story.

Radiohead enter studio

2009-05-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Colin Greenwood revealed to Nme.com that him and his bandmates entered the studio last week to begin working on their follow up to In Rainbows. He was also eager to praise producer Nigel Godrich, who's worked with them on every album since OK Computer.

Download mp3

He spoke to the news magazine at Brighton's Great Escape Festival over the weekend.

http://www.nme.com/news/radiohead/44728

How Radiohead's business model shook up industry

2009-05-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Radiohead performs to a cheering crowd during Lollapalooza's first day at Grand Park, Friday, Aug., 1, 2008. (Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune / August 1, 2008)

The following is an excerpt from Greg Kot's new book, "Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music" (Scribner, $25). "Ripped" tells the story of a new grass-roots music industry, created by the laptop generation, with the fans and bands in charge.

In this excerpt, Radiohead reinvents the way in which it distributes music directly to its fans:

Whenever he considered the possibility of Radiohead going into business for itself, guitarist Jonny Greenwood got a little queasy. "It makes me think we're gonna be sitting in endless business meetings talking about how to do it off our own backs, rather than sitting in studios recording music."

But Radiohead was genuinely unsettled by what it saw as the major labels' inability to adapt to the marketplace. The long lag time imposed by the majors between finishing an album and actually releasing it to set up a proper big-budget marketing campaign was particularly irritating. The band appreciated that its fans were almost ridiculously vigilant. As soon as word would get out that Radiohead had finished working on an album, the Internet began to buzz with anticipation. A leak of the new music would inevitably follow, and Radiohead fans were soon sharing the music and debating its merits. Inevitably, Web sites would jump in with their critiques of the still-unreleased work. It was flattering and yet frustrating for the band; increasingly, they sensed the problem was not with the fans, but with their label's inability to keep up with how fans were consuming music.

By the fall of 2007, Radiohead had a new album ready to go, but still hadn't pulled the trigger on any kind of record deal. It decided to release the album anyway, through its Web site. On Oct. 1, Jonny Greenwood posted a terse announcement on radiohead.com: "Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days. We've called it 'In Rainbows.' "

So much for the big marketing plan. In the land of the major labels, Greenwood would've been drummed out of the public-relations academy for his utter offhandedness. For an artist of Radiohead's stature, it was customary for a big label to plot out the details of an album release months in advance, to line up shelf space at retail stores, programming at commercial radio, and full-page ads and interviews in Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the usual print-media suspects. But for the first time in its existence, Radiohead had no such constraints. It could now effectively function as its own record company, record store, and distribution service rolled into one -- at least temporarily. So Radiohead instructed its fans that on Oct. 10, it would provide an access code to a digital download of the new album to any customer willing to part with an e-mail address.

The price was left to the customer's discretion, the virtual equivalent of a giant tip jar.

"It's up to you," the checkout screen read for preordering the 10-song disc.

Also available to order was an expanded, physical version of the album, to ship two months later. Priced at the U.S. equivalent of $81, it would include an 18-track double album packaged in both CD and vinyl versions, with lyrics, artwork, and photographs in a hardback book and slipcase.

Radiohead's distribution strategy for "In Rainbows" reduced the decade-long debate over Internet downloading to a single, deceptively simple question: "What's this piece of music really worth to you?" It was a question that respected the intelligence of the potential buyer, a question that bristled with moral, ethical, economic and aesthetic considerations. And yet it was a question that could be answered with a simple mouse click, in prices ranging from $0.00 to $99.99 (the order form didn't accommodate three-digit dollar figures).

It was a brilliant move made even more potent by its timing. Only a week before, a federal jury in Minnesota had awarded the record industry a $220,000 judgment against Jammie Thomas for the crime of downloading 24 copyrighted songs and making them available for file sharing. Thomas was hardly alone. At the very moment her verdict was being read, more than 9 million consumers were sharing music files around America, according to media management company BigChampagne.

As one of the more marketable names in the business, Radiohead was in a position where it didn't have to give away anything. It had the cachet to charge $10 or more for its music, and rest assured that most of its fans would gladly pay. But it clearly wanted no part of a music industry that labels its own customers as thieves. By declaring, "It's up to you," Radiohead made it clear whose side it was on.

The Internet exploded with Radiohead-related chatter. In the three days after the announcement, blogpulse.com, a search engine that reports on daily blog activity, showed more than a 1,300 percent increase in the number of posts mentioning the band.

The behind-the-scenes mechanics of the deal were intriguing, all the more so because Radiohead really wasn't interested in talking about them -- perhaps because it might've appeared unseemly to gloat. The band stood to profit handsomely from any paid download. What's more, they didn't have to share the money with any middlemen.

Ken Waagner, the tech guru for Wilco, estimated that Radiohead spent $5,000 to $10,000 to process the flood of orders and downloads on its Web site. Those distribution costs are minimal compared with what pioneers such as Prince faced a decade ago when fans ordered CDs from his Web site. Rather than e-mailing a code to customers leading them to a download page, Prince had to manufacture, package, and ship CDs, and struggled to keep up with demand.

Prince, like Radiohead, was able to pull it off because he had a large fan base for his music built up over years of promotion and marketing by a major label before he went into business for himself. This factor often was overlooked in media coverage of Radiohead's new business model, but it was critical to its success.

"Radiohead's developed a pretty good brand name over the years," Allman Brothers manager Bert Holman says. "There's artistic merit, but they also had a major label doing a lot of marketing for them. They're in a position where, of course, they can do something like this. And so could a few others -- U2, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews. These are bands that benefited from the old system. But it's not really applicable to reinventing the music business."

Radiohead didn't want to lead a revolution. Its goal was far more modest: to leak its own album, give fans a taste of the new music, and invite them to buy the sonically superior physical product once it became available in a few months. If the band screwed up, it was in offering "In Rainbows" in the form of relatively low-fidelity 160 kilobits per second MP3s.

A year after the release of "In Rainbows," the big numbers started to roll in. The album had sold 3 million copies, including downloads from radiohead.com, according to the band's publisher, Warner/Chappell. The sales from the band's website alone exceeded the total sales for the band's previous album, "Hail to the Thief." The figures included 100,000 limited-edition box sets, sold at the U.S. equivalent of $81 -- an $8 million haul, with the band keeping most of the profits. The publicity windfall helped ensure one of the most successful tours of 2008, with the band playing to 1.2 million fans.

It was an impressive accomplishment, if only an intriguing first step in a new direction for the business as a whole. This revolution, as successful as it was, could have used a few tweaks: the low-bit-rate digital release was slipshod; after two months, the Radiohead Web site stopped offering the name-your-price MP3 files; and the band ended up tying its fate to a traditional record label (albeit an independent one) rather than pioneering a new marketplace dynamic. Perhaps that was too much to ask of any band.

Manchester's FC United 'do a Radiohead' over ticket prices

2009-05-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

Unibond League side FC United have come up with a novel way of ensuring they do not lose fans during the current recession - by getting them to name their own season ticket price.

Who's asking? FC United fans have been told to name their price to watch side Photo: STEVE ALLEN

The club, launched in 2005 as a protest at Malcolm Glazer's takeover of Manchester United, missed out on the play-offs to reach Conference North this season, the first time they have not been promoted.

Yet they still remain committed to the principle of a supporters' trust, the basis on which they were founded and, taking the idea of Radiohead, who got fans to name their own price to download their music off the internet, the club have come up with a novel scheme of their own, named 'Your season ticket, your choice'.

And, while some people might look upon the latest move as slightly bizarre, particularly as the cash still needs to be found for the present ground-sharing agreement with Bury, FC United officials are confident fans with extra cash will make up the shortfall.

FC United board member Jules Spencer said: "We hope the 'Your season ticket, your choice' campaign will do two things. First, it will offer a lower season ticket price for those who cannot afford last year's price.

"Secondly, it means those supporters who can afford a bit more can choose to donate as much as they wish."

FC United recently revealed that they hope to move into their own ground within the next two years.

The club signed an extension with Bury over their ground-share contract which runs out in 2011. FC United averaged 2,152 this season.

Rock Music Menu: Weekly special: Radiohead rules!

2009-05-25T15:31:00.000-07:00

By Michael Christopher, Times Music Columnist

There’s a lot of music related goods floating around out there, and sometimes it can be too much to sift through — which is why Rock Music Menu’s Weekly Special will let you know what’s hot and shouldn’t be missed.

Radiohead has been dubbed by many “the most important band in the world,” especially as of late; with its pay-what-you want model of distributing new material changing the way artists big and small think about getting music to the fans.

But to understand why, beyond the innovative and curious movements, the band is so appealing, you have to go back to the beginning and examine its initial output, which is made all the more inviting with the recent issue of Collectors Editions of the Brit sensation’s first three studio releases.

Basically, the Radiohead fan falls into one of three categories; there are the people who only know the band because of the radio staple “Creep,” a 1992 hit that transcends playlists to this day, appearing in regular rotation on modern rock, hard rock and classic rock stations.

The other end of the spectrum has hardcore contingents who have fixated on album art, band blogs and lyrics like they were a modern day Rosetta Stone, attempting to decipher and somehow find meaning in it all. This is made all the more interesting as the majority of the last four records by the group have been more ambient pop than anything else, less traditional in song structures, falling somewhere between the progressive nature of Tool and the stoned out meanderings of Pink Floyd.

Finally, there is the middle of the road group who though impressed with the genius of parts of the catalog, feel like Radiohead lost the plot at some point, only to recover slightly with the most recent release, “In Rainbows.” The Collectors Editions are tailor made with these people in mind, as it’s everything you already know you love, and then a bonus from the era with each album coming with an additional CD of rarities and B-sides.

Ultimately, it’s just the outfit’s former record label trying to make some more coin off of its legacy, but it does compress a lot of hard to find tracks and present a much more concise product from which to glean the importance of Radiohead.

“Pablo Honey,” the band’s debut, is a great slice of sensible pop, drawing on late 80s U2 for inspiration. “Creep” is the promising rock-out track, complimented by the opener “You,” but neither is an accurate representation of the rest of the sound. Tracks like the plaintive “Stop Whispering” and “Lurgee” are among the catchier songs, and indicative of the more immediate future sound of the band.

The second disc of the set combines various EPs and a BBC Radio One Session from 1992, but the real gem is the inclusion of the “Creep” single, which features a stellar acoustic version of the track. Stripped down to singer Thom Yorke and the acoustic guitar is where the power of the song really resonates.

It wasn’t until the sophomore follow-up that the alternative nation had a new band to live and die by; “The Bends” is a strong contender for modern rock record of the 90s, and it came out of nowhere. Songs like “High and Dry” and “Fake Plastic Trees” were staples on “120 Minutes” on MTV, and the band vaulted to top of the college rock heap. Rarely can this be said about an album, but this one is pretty much flawless.

Radiohead was extremely prolific during the recording of “The Bends,” as the second disc here presents clearly. The EP “My Iron Lung” is great, and the material on the single for “Street Spirit” is as well. Add in a 1994 BBC Session and the bonus disc becomes much more than a nice bunch of extras, it’s a perfect companion piece to the record.

“OK Computer” is when Radiohead achieved genius status among both critics and fans. Proving that “The Bends” wasn’t an anomaly, its lush textures and experimentalism might be a complete divergence from that album’s rock side, but remains masterpiece nonetheless. The upcoming sonic alleyways the group would take are hinted at here, but tracks like “Karma Police,” “Paranoid Android” and “Let Down” are pure melodic brilliance.

For the B-Sides, the band enlisted artists like Zero 7 to remix the material, lending it a soundscape that would prove more than influential in the next couple albums like “Kid A” and “Amnesiac.” But while “OK Computer” pushed Radiohead against the gate, the group hadn’t quite left the reservation.

There might never be a more prolific and mainstream friendly period for the band than this trio of releases, each which are also available in limited edition “Special Collectors Edition” packages that contain a DVD with videos and live extras, but just this alone is enough. It distinguished Radiohead as trailblazers, and has stamped an influence on music that will be felt for decades to come.

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Radiohead manager told band to call it quits

2009-05-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, the Irish Times published an interesting article about the transforming role of music management. Writer John Collins centers the story around two managers: U2’s Paul McGuinnes and Radiohead’s Brian Message, who provides plenty of interesting fodder.

Prior to recording In Rainbows and coming up with the whole pay-what-you-want-internet-download idea, “Message says he and two of his partners had actually advised the band to split up. Two years after leaving EMI, Radiohead were still no closer to recording an album. The songs were written but the band couldn’t achieve the sound they were looking for in the studio. Courtyard felt maybe it was time to call it a day. Surely professional managers shouldn’t encourage their most profitable act to split up?”

“‘I’ve been lucky to work with some great artists and Radiohead are a once in a generation act,’ says Message. ‘But you have to be honest if it’s not working. You have to have passion about what you do. I’m an accountant but I love music and I’m passionate about the artists I work with.’”

Sort of sounds like a dummy after that, right? Maybe not. Message has agreed to appear on behalf of graduate student Joel Tenenbaum, who is being sued for allegedly sharing 7 tracks on Kazaa. Message will testify that file-sharing can help the music industry, according to Tenenbaum’s lawyer, Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School. Read more here.

Radiohead Advised to “Split Up” Prior to “In Rainbows”

2009-05-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

Photo: Shearer/WireImage

Buried deep inside an Irish Times story about musicians surviving in the Internet age is a revelation that thankfully never became reality: Radiohead’s own managers recommended the band “split up” as the group struggled to record what eventually became In Rainbows. That’s what Brian Message, whose Courtyard Management helps oversee the band, admitted, saying that though the songs were written, the band had spent the better part of two years unable to capture the songs in the studio.

“Radiohead are a once in a generation act,” Message said. “But you have to be honest if it’s not working. You have to have passion about what you do.” The band ignored their managers’ recommendations and instead completed work on In Rainbows, which was not only critically acclaimed immediately after its surprise release, but also helped revolutionized how music is distributed in the Internet age thanks to its “pay-what-you-want” scheme, which Message reiterates was “the best thing for that band at that time.”

“We realized that, by using the Internet for the delivery of the album, we could reach 173 countries and it would cost us less than three cents a copy for distribution,” Message told the Irish Times. “Two of my partners in the management company came up with the idea of pay what you like. Both the band and us were really excited about doing something brave and a bit wacky.”

While most fans opted to pay nothing for the album, and more people downloaded In Rainbows for free illegally rather than legally, the album still entered the charts at Number One when it was officially released on January 1st, 2008 and the band still raked in the cash during their sold-out tour.

Unfortunately for snubbed fans Kanye West and Miley Cyrus, the band has still decided not to “split up”: They’ll play this year’s Reading and Leeds fests in late August.

Radiohead - Pablo Honey

2009-05-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

Radiohead - Pablo Honey

1. You 3:27
2. Creep 3:55
3. How Do You 2:12
4. Stop Whispering 5:25
5. Thinking About You 2:41
6. Anyone Can Play Guitar 3:37
7. Ripcord 3:09
8. Vegetable 3:12
9. Prove Yourself 2:25
10. I Can't 4:13
11. Lurgee 3:07
12. Blow Out 4:39

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Radiohead - On A Friday Demo

2009-05-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Radiohead - On A Friday Demo

1. Keep Strong(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 3:28
2. Somebody Else(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 2:48
3. I Want To Know(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 4:27
4. Im Coming Up(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 3:53
5. Jerusalem(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 5:13
6. What Is That You Say(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 4:05
7. Something To Hate(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 1:14
8. I Cant(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 2:40
9. Without You(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 3:41
10. Give It Up(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 3:05
11. How Can You Be Sure(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 3:45
12. Everybody Lies Through Their Teeth(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 1:24
13. Rattlesnake In The Big City(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 6:32
14. The New Generation(1991 Courtyard Studio Uk) 3:48

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Radiohead were told to split up!

2009-05-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

In one of the most moronic things we've ever heard, the manager of Radiohead apparently advised the band to split up just prior to completing 'In Rainbows'. Can you believe a world without 'In Rainbows' let alone Radiohead!

According to The Irish Times, Radiohead's manager thought that because the band couldn't achieve the sound that they were looking for (with 'In Rainbows'), he thought it could be the end. He felt that after two years of leaving EMI, Radiohead were still no closer to finishing the album. Well you know what Mr Manager, thank god Thom and co. don't listen to anyone but themselves.

'In Rainbows' went on to sell thousands and thousands of copies across the whole world - thanks to the master stroke of fans downloading the album for whatever amount they felt worthy of spending.

Mr Manager, you're an idiot!!

www.radiohead.com
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Radiohead - On A Friday

2009-05-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

Radiohead - On A Friday

1. Keep Strong(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 3:27
2. Somebody Else(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 2:47
3. I Want to Know(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 4:26
4. I'm Coming Up(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 3:52
5. Jerusalem(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 5:12
6. What is that You Say(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 4:05
7. Something to Hate(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 1:14
8. I Can't(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 2:40
9. Without You(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 3:41
10. Give it Up(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 3:05
11. How Can You Be Sure(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 3:44
12. Everybody Lies Through Their Teeth(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 1:23
13. Rattlesnake in The Big City(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 6:32
14. The New Generation(1991 Courtyard Studio UK) 3:48

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Radiohead - Friskies

2009-05-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

Radiohead - Friskies

1. Aligators in New York Sewers 2:53
2. Blowout (with Pixies) 3:25
3. Cuttoth 4:53
4. Far Away 4:44
5. Aligators in New York Sewers 4:04
6. Give it Up 3:52
7. Hurricane 4:20
8. Lift 3:44
9. Nobody Does it Better 3:30
10. Philipa Chiken 3:50
11. Rhinestone Cowboy 3:28
12. Sing A Song for You 2:26
13. Static 5:16
14. Street Spirit (live with Ben Folds Five) 5:03
15. Sunday Bloody Sunday (live) 3:51
16. The Thief 5:23
17. Union City Blues 3:01
18. Worry Wort 4:38
19. Angel (Massive Attack) 6:15
20. Aligators in New York Sewers (live) 2:53

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Radiohead - "Creep"

2009-05-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen Radiohead live? They rock, in the most Fab way. If you dig their moody electronic rock, add them to your show queue. I once saw them in New York on Liberty Island — it was pretty phenomenal. However, they didn't play my favorite song of theirs — "Creep." I never understood why not. "Creep" was their first commercial success, it blew up circa '93. I remember being at camp and it was always the last song of the dance. And I was giddy dancing with my two-week camp BF. So when, years later, I saw them live, I had to hear "Creep." Maybe they didn't play it because it was so popular and therefore overplayed. Oh well, I still love them and this sweet and sour song.

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Rock Music Menu: Weekly special: Radiohead rules!

Radiohead manager told band to call it quits

Radiohead Advised to “Split Up” Prior to “In Rainbows”

Radiohead - Pablo Honey

Radiohead - On A Friday Demo

Radiohead were told to split up!

Radiohead - On A Friday

Radiohead - Friskies

Radiohead - "Creep"