Imagine an album in which every song bites endlessly at your senses and emotions. Intense, driving beats are meshed flawlessly, yet contrastingly, with melodic (and not to mention haunting) guitar riffs while the most unique and utterly beautiful vocals you have ever heard are hovering in the foreground. Every second is a piece of art. How much money would you pay for it? That question is exactly what Radiohead is asking its fans.
For those of you out there who grew up listening to the same kind of junk that's "popular" now, Radiohead is an alt-rock band from England that saw a lot of attention in the late 1990s with its release of "OK Computer." Regardless of your personal feelings or ignorance of the band, it is unquestionable they were supremely influential to countless contemporary groups. Radiohead's new (released two weeks ago) album "In Rainbows" is revolutionary in its musical qualities but even more so in the way it was distributed.
Rather than releasing hard copies of the album in retail stores where they would immediately be marked up in price for profit, Radiohead decided to release the album as a digital download directly from its Web site. The decision to release it digitally actually came as a surprise to a lot of fans who were getting prepared for the long wait that was projected, and indeed the hard copy of the album (as well as a fat stack of extra content) is not going to be shipped until Dec. 3.
The Internet has been used with great success in record distribution in the past. Wilco, a band out of Chicago that is currently being featured in Volkswagen commercials, used their Web site to stream its fourth album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," after its record label refused to produce it and actually let the band go. After the album was "rediscovered" by a label owned by the same corporation as the band's previous employers, it went on to sell 590,000 copies. Incidents of that caliber show music lovers can't trust the music industry to guess what is good and what is not. There is plenty of gold just waiting out there in the ether for some brave fan to discover.
The use of the Internet as a distribution system is not unique to "In Rainbows." The real marketing innovation comes in the pricing system employed. The disk box with the physical copies costs a grand total of $80, and, it seems, is geared towards bigger fans of the band who want it for their collections. The digital download of the album, however, is left blank for the buyer to fill in. That's right, you get to pay however much or little your heart desires. Most of the people that I know paid about twenty bucks for it, which is right around what they'd pay in a record store, but I also know a couple that paid far less (zero in one case) because they're not big fans of Radiohead.
The hope behind the system is that fans who think the album is worthy will pay a fair price for it and those who don't really dig it will still be able to hear it. The initial thoughts from business majors is that Radiohead is committing financial suicide by literally giving away their product, but let's look at things logically. People who aren't willing to pay the full price for the album are going to download it illegally anyway. Why not give those people a chance to pay a couple dollars if that's all they believe it's worth?
The members of Radiohead are financially secure enough that they don't need to set high prices to survive. They have the advantage of having enough money to allow them to transcend the level of commercial musicians and become true artists who don't have to rely on the opinions of others in order to produce their art.
If only more pop-culture icons could make that transition into the realm of true art.
Write to Brad at bthorn@bsu.edu
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