The UK alt-rock band Radiohead, of which I’m a longtime fan, is breaking new ground once again. This time by releasing their new album, “In Rainbows,” first only through their own website, nowhere else, at least not until “early next year” when they plan to do a “traditional CD release.” But that’s not the clincher. They’re actually leaving the price field blank, allowing consumers to decide how much they want to pay for it.
I’ve crawled a few sites including NME.com, the Atlantic and others, and the consensus is that i
t’s not just a novel approach but a psychologically grounded one to boot. According to BPI (the British Phonographic Institute), only one in 20 music downloads is actually paid for. So part of the thinking, it’s thought, is that the band is hoping to tug on the moral and/or ethical codes of a few non-paying types in hopes that they’ll cough up at least a buck or so and thereby capture sales that would have been lost anyway. As The Telegraph states it, “in effect, it puts a moral impetus on the listener to either reward the musician, or acknowledge their own greed.”
Meanwhile, the serious Radiohead loyalists, of which I will guess there’s maybe a million at this point worldwide, will feel a duty to pay a reasonable amount, i.e. at or above what would typically be market price, about $10 USD. In fact, I just “chose” to pay £5.00 for an “In Rainbows” download I can grab on October 10. Note that that’s for a pre-order though … putting another spin on this situation. I’ve not even heard the album yet, so I’m only forecasting, if you will, its value. But that’s easy enough for this fan, as I’d buy it even if it were complete junk.
No doubt the band is totally banking on die-hards like me in the early-adopter phase leading up to the exclusive release, and then again through to the conventional release next year. Only, this isn’t Apple gouging its iPhone early-adopters (mostly legions of Apple loyalists, myself included) then giving them store credit (to spend more money with Apple) when they dropped the price through the floor to effectively reward the masses who waited it out.
Not that I’m actually upset about that either. I love my iPhone almost to a point of embarrassment, and will drop a hundred bucks in the Apple store any chance you give me. Hmm. Maybe I’ll plop that store credit down on a pair of those fancy Shure Triple TruAcoustic MicroSpeakers for a fat five bills. I bet if I crank ’em way, way up I can even hear my credit card whimpering.
Posted by: Colin Mangham