The Eternal Hottness: Radiohead

As I eagerly await my In Rainbows discbox, I want to talk about the way it was released. If you are slacking and haven't got a copy of it, go get it now because the free download site closes tomorrow. Radiohead has yet to release any real numbers on how this album release experiment has gone, but all indications from the band members themselves point to it being successful on their terms. The debate that has raged since this all began is what kind of impact will this have on the music industry? There are a few dimensions to this that I want to break down. The first question to be asked is: Can this exact model work for anybody else but Radiohead?

A counter argument that Lily Allen made about this model is that what Radiohead are doing will hurt smaller artists: “They’ve got millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who haven’t done as well...” I'm not sure Lily, who got big in the music industry because of her famous parents, can really relate to struggling bands, but let us take her point seriously. So far only Trent Reznor, who has been hating on the record industry for a while and currently not on a label, has tried this experiment with the new Saul Williams album he produced. The model is slightly different (you can choose between getting it free at 192 Kbps or pay $5 to get a higher quality format), but basically it is the same idea. Numbers have not been disclosed from that either, but even when they do, it's unclear how much of the big picture is going to be revealed. An artist like Saul Williams, relatively obscure compared to Radiohead, may reach a larger audience through this distribution model and the publicity surrounding it and this may increase sales of his music, tickets to shows, and merchandise down the road. But even Saul Williams is backed by Trent Reznor, who is pretty famous and rich himself. Radiohead's response to this argument, in this great interview you should read, is:

Ed: 'But the thing is, so much good music is now free anyway.'

Jonny: 'Yeah, the download culture is there anyway. It's King Canute - you can't pretend the flood isn't happening. This friend of mine bought the Muse album. And his 12-year-old son was just looking at it - "Wow, the real thing!" His son had the album already, he knew the songs, but he'd never held a CD. He just found it a curious object. That's kind of how it is now.'

This is the reality of the situation, and barring an invasion of Sweden, there really isn't much anyone can do to stop piracy altogether. It would be fairly difficult, in my opinion, to find a single album that came out this year that wasn't available somewhere on the internet. The next question, then, is: Does this exact model even have to work for anyone else to be successful?

Another naysayer of the Radiohead model has been Gene Simmons: “That’s not a business model that works. I open a store and say ‘Come on in and pay whatever you want.’ Are you on fucking crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?” Well, maybe this model can't work for everybody, but it could change the game enough to find a better model than exists now. Two smaller bands that no one had heard of a few years ago but now have the potential to emerge as two of the greatest bands to come out of this decade, Deerhunter and Grizzly Bear, each have a blog where they release mp3s of their material for free. They've certainly had a ton of help from Pitchfork and the blogosphere in blowing up, but the reason they have received such a big buzz is completely about the music and performances they do, not because a record label is pushing them to play on the radio. In the current climate of the music world, anybody who makes amazing music can get that music out to the masses, and once they achieve a large fanbase, they can cash in on that success with tours, merch, and the people who still want a physical copy of the album.

Even if giving your music away doesn't end up being a viable economical model, just showing the current model doesn't work may be enough to get a better model together. When the music pirating site OiNK got shutdown recently, Trent Reznor had this to say about it:

"I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it -- they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want."

The music industry doesn't know what the consumer wants. They have not adapted the way they should have to changes in the market. One music company that does get it is Emusic. I've recently become a subscriber to their service and I have to say I've been enjoying it. I pay $25 a month, and I can download 100 songs in high bitrate MP3s that are DRM free. Now the downside of Emusic is that the selection consists primarily of non-major label artists and it can be difficult to find things that aren't obscure, but just think if someone with the money and power in the industry could create a site that combined the Emusic model with the vast selection of OiNK. It would be a great start.

The final question to ask is: What if there is no model that works? The worst case scenario is pirating cannot be stopped and everyone stops paying for albums. In terms of the quality of music, would this necessarily be a bad thing? I mean, I doubt if you read this blog regularly you would think that those that have spoken against this model like Lily Allen, Gene Simmons, and Oasis have made better music than Radiohead and Trent Reznor, right? Viewing music completely as a commodity is not having a full understanding of what music is. I think free-market capitalism is some great stuff in most arenas, but with art, it doesn't seem to do anything but dilute the quality. If people can't make tons of money making music, that doesn't mean music is just going to stop getting made, it means that the people making music will do it for the love of music, not for the money. Now, I want to see the bands I love make money for their work, and I believe they can even in this worst case scenario, but at the end of the day, what matters most to me is hearing great music, and as the industry has been in a tailspin, I feel like I've been hearing more and more great music than ever in my life, so I'm pretty optimistic.

To sum it all up, Radiohead rules.

Here is the first test webcast, Entanglement:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Here is the complete 2 and half hour webcast of Thumbs Down in all its glory:



Now that i've become so familiar with the new stuff, it is cool to go back and listen to the live versions of the songs from last year. Here's a torrent of a show you can download losslessly here, but I've got all the new songs for you to listen to here:

Radiohead
6/14/2006
The Theater at Madison Square Garden
New York, NY

Taper: scb
Source: DPA (B&K) 4022s > Sound Devices 722 @ 24/96
722 > Apple MacBook Pro > Spark XL 2.8.2 (normalize, resample to 44.1khz, dither to 16 bit) > xACT 1.58 > shn
Location: Dead Center, about 20 feet from the stage

Disc 1

01 Intro 02:04.14
02 The Gloaming 03:49.38
03 The National Anthem 05:07.31
04 15 Step 04:31.24
05 Arpeggi 04:33.13
06 Kid A 03:56.39
07 Dollars And Cents 05:22.70
08 Videotape 05:09.07
09 Nude 04:38.49
10 I Might Be Wrong 04:39.20
11 Paranoid Android 07:11.60
12 Bangers 'n Mash 03:46.45
13 Pyramid Song 04:50.39

Disc 1 Total: 59:40.74


Disc 2

01 My Iron Lung 05:31.26
02 Bodysnatchers 04:40.09
03 Myxomatosis 04:24.19
04 No Surprises 04:19.28
05 Everything In Its Right Place 08:36.23
Encore 1:
06 A Wolf At The Door 03:50.30
07 Down Is The New Up 05:28.06
08 Like Spinning Plates 03:10.41
09 Spooks 01:31.27
10 Idioteque 06:41.04
Encore 2:
11 Just 04:28.12
12 The Tourist 06:01.32