Free music, and it’s not even stolen
October 18, 2007 on 9:21 am | In entertainment, music |As you may have heard, Radiohead is allowing you to name your own price for their latest album, In Rainbows. That includes getting the download for free. I’m very interested in how they will do profit-wise. I think it’s a really cool idea. For one thing, it gets people to listen to the album, even if they aren’t traditionally Radiohead fans. For another, it does away with the whole pirated music thing (for them, anyway). And in our case anyway, it got us to give them money when we probably wouldn’t have bought the album, and at most, would have downloaded maybe two or three songs off iTunes.
So far the album is pretty much what you’d expect from Radiohead if you’ve heard any of their past music. It’s good for background noise. Like when you’re having people over and there is a lot of conversation going on, when you’re working, or when you’re just not in the mood to listen to music with a strong leaning on lyrics.
I’ve heard that some people who don’t really like Radiohead’s music have been donating $20 or more to them just because they like what they’re doing. I hope this starts a trend.
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I’m not kidding, a WEEK before radiohead released this downloadable album, my husband told me, “I have a great idea for how to put an album out,” and, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, it was the exact same idea that radiohead is doing. He was kind of sad. So now if we do do it, we’ll just be copycats
Comment by Adena — October 22, 2007 #
Well, I think Jonathan Coulton even had you guys beat. Of course, he’s a no-name unless you’ve stumbled upon his song, “Re: Your Brains.” Good song by the way.
So yeah, Radiohead isn’t original. And their album isn’t amazing or anything. But it’s a really cool thing for a big-name band to do.
Comment by Wendy W — October 22, 2007 #
To take advantage of the situation, I paid 0.01 EUR, which is about 2 American cents. With the fees and everything, I paid around a buck. The music is good, but I’m not really a Radiohead fan. That’s why I didn’t pay more. To be fair, I probably would pay less for bands I like. Thus, I can’t imagine they would make this a standard practice for the RIAA.
Comment by Jeff Watkins — October 23, 2007 #