Bits and Pieces of Radiohead
I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t weigh in on the whole Radiohead album thing. Fortunately, I’ve had some thinking assistance in this regard.
Ever have one of those conversations that are like playing tennis with someone who’s slightly better at it than you? You end up running around the court, working up a bit of a sweat, playing above your own expectations and improving your overall game, cognitively speaking.
I had one of those over several glasses of scotch last night with my friend Clutch from the band (x) is greater than (y). The topics ranged from Buddhism to corporate ethics, the relationship between age and the songwriter’s craft, New Zealand colonial history, the problem of public funding — and the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows.
I’d been holding off for a few days on writing about the new Radiohead release — mostly because so much had already been said about it as a new music strategy elsewhere. But as a result of the catalyst of that conversation, I think I’ve ended up with some useful analysis to throw into the mix.
It’s clear that the Radiohead ‘pay whatever you want, but here’s the premium disc box’ arrangement is significant and exciting - but nobody seems to have put their finger on why it’s so intuitively right.
Let’s go back a decade or more to a book by Nicholas Negroponte. Large parts of it made me cross at the time, but there was a central idea I found interesting: the world of physical items is made out of atoms; the digital world is made out of bits. These component pieces have their own unique characteristics.
Bits are endlessly and perfectly replicable. There is an infinite supply of them. They can travel immense distances in a matter of seconds, and they can be endlessly manipulated, transformed and reassembled. Things made of bits have no weight, smell or substance. They are entirely ephemeral and yet they do not decay.
Digital works do not have, as Walter Benjamin would have it, the aura of authenticity of an ‘original’. They are, to use Baudrillard’s terminology, simulacra - copies of things of which there is no original.
By contrast, atoms are discrete units that form the building blocks of concrete items of tangible significance. They are finite and often scarce in number. It takes force and energy to move physical objects from place to place. They tend to appeal to more senses than just sound and vision, having the properties of weight, smell, texture and the characteristic of being susceptible to degradation over time.
The brilliance of the Radiohead release is entirely in the extent to which they have approached both of these types of media on their own terms. The way in which you make a desirable item of quality in the world of bits is not the same way in which you make a desirable item of quality in the world of atoms.
One cannot seek to replace the other. It simply jostles it about a bit in the mix of available modes of consumption.
And this goes some long way towards explaining why the declining sales of CDs are not compensated by an accelerating rate of paid digital downloads. Major record labels seem to misunderstand the world of bits AND the world of atoms, and are trying desperately to make the one do the job of the other.
CDs are not actually on the decline. If anything, they’re on the rise. There are many categories of CD — from the connoisseur box set and the high end reissues with books, photography and high quality materials, right down to the hand-scrawled quick demo using a medium that is now so close to being free that anybody can make their own and hand them around to friends.
I reckon there are about ten different categories of compact disc usage.
But one type of CD — the mass-produced, high volume, full retail price CD — is on the decline. Why? Because it more or less fully misunderstands its own character. In trying to be affordable, corners are cut in terms of quality and substance of presentation.
It’s not nearly free like a hand-cut CDR, but nor is it a premium product like a — well, like a disc box.
And the idea of selling DRM-crippled digital tracks at more or less the same price as their physical counterparts seems entirely counter-intuitive when you understand the innate characteristics of the component elements.
Digital music has no value-as-artefact. It is entirely ephemeral. It only has cultural value, and this — as Radiohead assert — can be negotiated on an individual basis.
There is no risk here. Radiohead cannot, as I see, fail to make this their most significant, influential and (most likely) lucrative album to date. And that’s without having heard the music, which I suspect will be ace.
I say this for two reasons:
1) Radiohead understand marketing. This is a great story, and one that is being talked about and shared at great length, both through the potentially free nature of the music itself, but also because it is, as Seth Godin puts it, a Purple Cow of an idea.
2) Radiohead understand media — in a deeply McLuhanistic sense. They have approached each medium on its own terms and have applied the principles related to the innate characteristics of bits and atoms respectively.
I suspect I’ll buy the discbox. It just looks so tangible and lovely. Clutch was the same. He was first in line. But what he’s paid for is different in almost every conceivable way from what a casual downloader, curious and in for a quid, will get.
But both are important and valuable. They’re just made of different stuff.
15 Comments, Comment or Ping
Smiles
I agree. It’s fascinating, and totally unsurprising that Radiohead have been the most well-known artist to do it. Of course, you had the Prince album free with the not-to-be-named daily newspaper last month, but that’s a different kettle.
A friend and I were talking about it last night on the bus, and were wondering, what if they had done it slightly differently…download the album, listen to it, THEN pay what you think it’s worth.
Sure, it’s relying on the old honesty system, but perhaps this is another way of doing it for bands that aren’t as well-known. Give away your albums at a gig, and have a little sticker on them asking people to have a listen, then go to their website and make a donation if they consider it worthy.
Oct 3rd, 2007
Ruben Keing
Thank you (and by extension Clutch) for putting together a sensible response to the new Radiohead release. There have been such a flurry of, “Ohmygod it’s sooo cool (but I’m not sure why)” postings fluttering around since the big announcement.
How do you think this model of dual pricing a naked download and a premium object would work for a group with less prominence than Radiohead?
And, do you know anything about Capitol/EMI’s (non)involvement in this?
Oct 3rd, 2007
Charles
The bastard fairies did something similar not so long ago with their album Memento Mori. They were giving the download away for free on the internet (well, really the first 11 or 12 songs, can’t quite remember). The full album came later with the added value of an extra 5 or 6 songs.
I’m not sure exactly as to how well-known they are, but I can’t imagine they rival with Radiohead. In any case, they came close to making me buy the physical album even though I must admit I wasn’t that much a fan of their music after listening to the download.
Johnathan Coulton is another example of using differential products (and not just differential pricing), distributing some songs online for free and allowing other to be purchased as download. I don’t think Coulton was known at all when he started and I’ve just noticed there’s now a show on cable TV (I forget the channel) called CodeMonkey, which uses his song by the same name. I imagine he was paid for this and his strategy essentially worked.
I don’t think the idea of a differential product, content-wise, is new, although Radiohead’s offering will most probably bring it into the mainstream.
Oct 3rd, 2007
mike e
Andrew,
Absolutely agree with your assessment of the Radiohead “donation” strategy. This will work for established artists with a worldwide audience. New artists, however, will have a struggle to make it work simply because they do not have a large audience who is passionate about their music (yet).
Perhaps an up and coming act could sell their newest release at full retail (digital & physical) and then package other content (older releases, live recordings, demos) at a “donation” rate.
Side note - thank you for your dedication and insight on these “new music” topics.
-Mike E.
Oct 3rd, 2007
Joe Fraser
Will this be chart eligible?
I seem to remember a great band from the Midlands, Midas i think their name was who were unfairly banned from the charts.
If somone is paying pence for an album then surely that cant be chart eligible.
Seems like one rule for the majors and another for hardworking unsigned artists.
Joe
Oct 3rd, 2007
Nolan Smock
I think what’s also pretty cool about this is that, even though Radiohead obviously has the money to produce that awesome box set, if this sort of practice is applied to a relatively new band who is just playing around live a lot, they can release a digital version of their album to create some capital for a tour or a physical release without any sort of label advance. Clever.
Oct 4th, 2007
Rich
Madlib & Talib Kweli gave away their album “Liberation” at the start of the year for free for one week as a download and have since gone on to release it in physical from as CD and coloured vinyl and by all accounts it seems to be selling well. I’m sure (but could be wrong) that it would have sold less had it not had the hype from the free giveaway.
Oct 4th, 2007
Pete Ashton
@Smiles: “download the album, listen to it, THEN pay what you think it’s worth.”
I wish artists would do this. I often download stuff via BitTorrent to check it out and I’d rather just throw some cash their way than go through the rigmarole of buying the CD which I’ll never play or getting DRMed downloads which I’ll then delete. (Plus the bit rate on BT is usually far superior).
Oct 4th, 2007
CraigT
The Radiohead thing is not really that big a deal. Internet marketers have been using this method to sell their ‘back ends’ for years; offering lots of free reports and free products [oh yeah. Grab this. Value $777] in order to hook people in then sell the course at $597, then the other course about something else at a further $897 and so on with the occasional free mp3 audio interview of ‘me and some Internet Guru’ thrown in to keep the deals sweet.
Radiohead have applied an internet marketing strategy to selling their product. The reason it appears great is because the music industry have educated everyone for years that the price they set for a product is it’s actual value. Whereas the actual value of anything is whatever value you give it.
Radiohead are merely piddling about with perceived value which is much easier to manipulate in the world of ‘bits’ than in the atomic universe. The eventual sensory perception and sensual experience you derive from the product - however it’s delivered - is it’s actual and real value. And that is the decision that you, the consumer, make.
Lot’s of musicians have been giving away free music for years. They just don’t have the might of the music industry marketing consumer education systems behind them like Radiohead have. And this is what has added ‘value’ to this band’s experiment. Bet it’s good music though.
Oct 5th, 2007
Emptyeye
I like the idea and think it’ll work well for Radiohead. I do not think it’ll be the silver bullet in the music industry werewolf, however, for a couple reasons.
One, as others have mentioned, Radiohead are an established band. But more importantly than that, Radiohead have less a fanbase than a full-fledged cult surrounding them that will eagerly devour anything they put out. In other words, they have a lot of fans, and I’d bet that they have a higher than average percentage of fans that will happily buy the super-ultra-deluxe boxset version of the album at roughly $80USD. I have no idea how much they cost to make, but I truly believe that there is no risk here for Radiohead, as you said–but for different reasons. More precisely, I’m willing to bet that the profits from the boxset version will be more than enough to recoup any theoretical loss from people putting in “0″ or “(Whatever the lowest British currency denomination is)” or whatever.
So it’ll work for Radiohead, but I’m not sure how well this particular model would work for a band that doesn’t have that cult following around them.
Oct 6th, 2007
Drom Kapult
I paid £5 for the digital download but then I paid £5 per album for albums from Tom Robinson’s site (great albums) on a similar principle (though Tom’s site doesn’t require any payment). I think of these things in a similar manner as an honesty box that you might find at the side of the road with help yourself veggies or eggs in certain parts of the countryside. The impetus to pay more than a minimum is to encourage more of the same and £5 is more than the artist would see from an iTrap or CD sale.
The idea of adding the £40 deluxe boxset is a great one and I wouldn’t be surprised if repeat business comes from people feeling cheap and buying the download, then going back for the physical media (especially if they are getting on a bit and thus physical media is important).
Oct 8th, 2007
Nick
Sorry I’m late to the party, but I read this post right before going to Digital Music Forum West, and on my phone, so I couldn’t comment before.
I’ve very little to say other than this is some of the most insightful writing I’ve heard on the subject - and I’ve heard a lot.
The difference in the actual CD and the “ephemeral” download is key here - and as eMusic CEO David Pakman put it
“Labels will listen as you explain innovative, exciting ways to distribute their music and they’ll get it and want to be on board but say “OK, give us $0.70/track and we’re in”
iTunes itself is a fundamentally flawed model because it tries to apply a “units” model to the ephemeral digital file - an entirely new business model is what’s required (which is what i’ve proposed over at penny distribution, btw)
Oct 19th, 2007
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