Radiohead: In Rainbows
Radiohead seem to be the first large, mainstream band to release an album (In Rainbows) in a Magnatune-esque way: in mp3, over the internet with a customer chosen variable price.
With 1.2 million copies sold and an average price of about £4 (according to one survey) that has to be classed as a success. iTunes, with the majority of the music in DRM-format, has never appealed but if a model like this takes off then it seems a lot of us (me included) will be buying music via the internet (in the meantime I buy most of my music on CD).
If the model does take off then there will probably be alterations; I can’t see the big labels allowing a variable price that goes all the way to zero and the charts will have to adapt or die – as other people have pointed out people have been talking about the last.fm chart. I’m much more cheerful about the future of music distribution now than I was a year ago.
Enough about the distribution – what about the music? I have a few Radiohead albums – I tend to listen to them a lot when I first get them and then rarely play them later. It’s too early to tell whether that’ll happen to this one but I think it won’t, I’ve listened to it a lot and it has really grown on me.
….and if you want to support (in multiple senses of the word) a band that has been pioneering internet music (and you have recording equipment) then check out Brad’s request