Radiohead is releasing their new album, In Rainbows, themselves….without a record label.
They announced yesterday that on the 10th of October, it will be available as a download from their website, and lists the price as “It’s up to you….no, really, it’s up to you.” They’ll be letting fans set their own price for the download.
There will also be a £40 “discbox”, which includes two CDs, two vinyl records, plus artwork and text, pressed into a hardback book, available from the website, although they won’t ship until December.
Interesting.
I suspect that even with the huge flood of people who will most likely download it for free, the band still stands to make more money in the long run than they would from a traditional label release, simply by virtue of the fact that they’ll be keeping 100% of the income. It’s a really nifty idea.
This is going to be an important experiment. Radiohead are well-off enough so that they can afford to take a bath on it if it is a disaster.
Can you say “the music world is watching”? I thought you could.
it will be interesting to see what other entertainers will follow this example.
of course i think this should have been going on this way for at least the last 5 years if not more.
Brilliant!
I felt a great disturbance in the Force – as if millions of music label executives cried out and were suddenly silenced.
Seriously, imagine the terrifying power of the established artist controlling the distribution model. Well, actually you live that, but put that into full scale in the music industry…wow.
I’m betting that writers will be very closely watching how this goes, as well. I sure as heck will!