In Rainbows was a special case
Turns out the “pick your own price,” online release of Radiohead’s In Rainbows, won’t apply to any of the English natives’ future albums. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, frontman Thom Yorke noted that the unique release behind the band’s latest album was more of a “one-off” than anything else…
“I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation,” Yorke said of the band’s downloading policy for the album “In Rainbows.”
“It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do,” he said. “I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time.”
So much for the argument that Radiohead had set an all new precedent on album releases, but then again, they already have influenced quite a few other musicians…
All this also adds fuel to the fire to Trent Reznor’s recent comments on the circumstances behind the In Rainbows release…
“I think the way [Radiohead] parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd,” Reznor said when speaking to Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Michael Atkin. “But if you look at what they did, though, it was very much a bait and switch to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Reznor continued, “but I don’t see that as a big revolution [that] they’re kinda getting credit for.” In addition to the quality of Radiohead’s MP3s, NIN’s frontman also took issue with the band’s omission of artwork and altogether not taking care of the fans. “To me that feels insincere. It relies upon the fact that it was quote-unquote ‘first,’ and it takes the headlines with it.”
Hmm…
Looks like the Nine Inch Nails’ frontman may be right…
But if we do go completely to MP3, at least musicians are not leaving any impact on our environment, making any products. All these bands claim to be saving the environment, but they are making products, which uses energy. The only energy that will be used are computers being runn, which will never stop in our time. So, if bands want to go green, they need to go mp3. We keep wanting something to hold and then watch get old in our room. Is it really worth it?
I completely agree with Reznor. Even though I like Radiohead more than Trent’s thing, I’m one of those people that vehemently oppose the “end of the CD format” in favor of a switch to all mp3s, because it pretty much guarantees that artists and labels will be able to get away with selling consumers shitty, compressed files that lose tons of the fidelity they had when originally recorded in the studio…for the same price.
Is it just me or did Radiohead just screw a lot of people over?
damn
May 6th, 2008 at 10:38 am
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