Radiohead has a new experiment. They are no longer signed to a major record label, and have decided to sell their new album online, just 10 days after the completion of recording and mixing, for download from their own website. You can choose to download In Rainbows, or purchase the more expensive boxed set.

What makes the download different from other sites is that you can choose how much you want to pay for the album.

It seems a standard e-commerce transaction until you add the album to your purchase basket.There's an empty box where you must enter the price you want to pay. If, confused, you click on the nearby "?" icon: a message pops up saying simply: "IT'S UP TO YOU. Radiohead is planning a traditional CD release sometime in early 2008.

By taking things into their own hands Radiohead will make the record companies unhappy because they are being cut out of the loop. They can’t rip off artists any more and take all the money from their albums, as this connects the band directly with the listener.

The recording industry faces an uphill battle if it intends to turn things around as the music buying public has not been impressed with how they’ve gone about things lately in response to the seismic shift from compact discs to digital download in the way consumers acquire music.The recording industry are the “pirates” in the music ocean, as consumers are overpaying for poor quality, disposable music and the industry is still paying artists pennies and suing teenagers who are those artists’ biggest fans.

By all accounts the music industry, an oligopoly where a few gatekeepers control revenue streams, is undergoing involuntary democratization due to new digital technology and the Internet. Technological advances have rendered the music industries long-established business model obsolete.

We appear to be returning to an age when touring artists will earn their income from live performances, and use CDs to market their concerts.technological advances which have rendered its long-established business model obsolete

I've downloaded In Rainbow and a free evaluation copy of WinZip and started listening to the tracks on my tiny little computer speakers at the weekender:

1.15 STEP
2.BODYSNATCHERS
3.NUDE
4. WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI
5.ALL I NEED
6.FAUST ARP
7.RECKONER
8.HOUSE OF CARDS
9.JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE
10.VIDEOTAPE

My initial impressions are that this traditional anguished, songcraft based album is more accessible than the minimalist electronica of the techno sounding, atmospheric Amnesiac or Kid A or the earlier OK Computer. I have yet to hear Hail to the Thief (2003) or Thom Yorke's The Eraser. It's more akin to the guitar driven Bends.

The first two tracks of In Rainbows are electronic tinged, harsh and edgy, the next four are softer, even mellow; the pace picks up for the next three, with house of cards almost lyrical. The last track--- Videotape -- is the standout one. It's an interesting and melodic album.

On first hearing it seems more like a bunch of songs on a disc rather than a singular body, with the shifts of mood, tempo, volume. And I'm still listening to my digital music in the old fashioned way --- a laptop with a playlist of mp3s--rather than a Bose Sounddock with an i-pod

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Posted by: Pam | October 14, 2007 10:12 PM

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