This blog entry by Stephen Horn. The story: "Radiohead generation believes music is free"
The analysis:
- I found a link to this article on google news and I wanted to share this story with the class because I found it fascinating. I’m already a huge Radiohead fan, but the fact that they are standing up to the music industry, made the choice for this article a no-brainer for me. The article is about a recent decision of the U.K. band Radiohead to release their upcoming album in rainbows as a free media download. The band decided that the consumer should set the price of the album, and the band directly receives all the proceeds. Some have decided to pay full price, others just a few pence, but they do allow for option of nothing to be paid in order to receive the download. The album can be preordered at www.radiohead.com, with the release date of October 10th 2007.
Radiohead broke off from their record label attachments in 2005 and decided at that point that they could do it better, make more money, and make the music the way they want to. Not mention that they could rest easy knowing that they would no longer be feeding the industry that has dictated the music industry for far too long. Furthermore, without a recording label to answer to, the band is free to produce whatever kind of content they want to directly to the public, without having to be censored or filtered by a record label that is out to make a profit not music.
I thought that this article would go well with our in class discussion on the “Pop Culture Structure”, being that Radiohead is attempting to find a simpler and more direct path to their audience. It will be interesting to see in the next few weeks the full ramifications of these actions to see how all this will shape the industry. This decision to cut out the middleman hopefully will cause the industry to wake up and smell the 21st century and maybe even cause other bands to follow the example that Radiohead has made for them.
1 comment:
This Radiohead experiment has been fascinating to follow. The problem though is that a group like Radiohead - which has a massive cult following - can afford to buck the conventional system but it's a different story for a group still trying to find a fanbase. The typical record contract - for all it failings - still has the resources to help propel a relatively no-name act into higher prominence in ways that self-marketing may not be as efficient.
After all, the internet - for all the hype - has yet to really produce a true superstar act that blew up via the internet and not via normal record promotions (radio, video, press, etc.).
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