Now Oasis and Jamiroquai want to give their music away too. But do they actually understand what’s going on?
It’s amazing how many massive acts are currently without record deals at the moment. Oasis and Jamiroquai are just the tip of the iceberg. But they’ve had a look at what Radiohead are doing, and they want a piece of that.
VI (Virtual Intern) Laurence pointed me towards an article in the Telegraph in which major recording stars have noticed that Radiohead are getting a lot of press and reaching the ranks of most popular music website on the Briternet.
Their solution? Give music away for free.
And, in a sense, they’re absolutely right — but I’m not convinced they’re sure why or how.
I mean, this feels like a bubble, doesn’t it? Sooner or later Elton John, Billy Joel or Def Leppard, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones or Britney is going to come along with a shiny new album, get a bit of token coverage in the Daily Mail, LA Times and the Sun, get a modest 20,000 downloads and come away with not very much at all.
Something’s going to go ‘pop’ and it’s not that catchy single.
What’s clever about the Radiohead thing, as I’ve mentioned, is not that they’re giving away the music for free. They’re being generous, sure, but in a way that allows fans to reciprocate that generosity. They’ve made a high quality digital product, and a high quality physical product — and each supports the other beautifully.
Meanwhile, the Charlatans have made their download a tie-in with a radio station (which makes that a media promo giveaway, albeit a larger-than-usual one) — and Prince (for the last time) did NOT give his album away — he sold it in bulk to a newspaper and made more money off the retail of that one disc than most of his previous albums combined… and then went and did a massively successful one-venue, twenty-one-date tour.
But every different iteration of these new music strategies are uncritically assessed in the news media as an artist ‘giving away’ their music for free. When, in actual fact, mostly that’s not what’s going on.
JK and those Gallagher brothers — smart as they are — may fall into the trap of simply making their music available for free in a market that is becoming increasingly saturated with devalued music (the Radiohead album is not devalued, for reasons of value arrived at by other means, but that’s a longer conversation for another time).
This hypersaturation, which may not be that long in coming, is one of the dangers I would raise a flag over regarding the music-like-water debate too.
The whole ‘we need to make money from concerts these days, so the CD’s just a promotional gimmick — let’s just bash out an album and give that away for nothing’ approach reeks of the kind of obvious logical-conclusionism that major record label marketing departments have become renowned for.
It ignores strategy and the simple rules of promotional culture, and leaps straight into self-deluded herd thinking.
Well if the newspaper said that the Radiohead album was free… and Radiohead made loads of cash… we should make this new Limp Bizkit ballads record free and then we’ll make loads of cash too!
Yeah, maybe.
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7 Comments
The Radiohead thing is maybe a right direction when it comes to making music and gaining some profits of it, but for me there´s something strange with the Radiohead method as well. Radiohead have the money and the means to provide a shiny discbox deluxe thing to sell as a, have you got the real thing as suppose to the crappy download thing, but independent acts don´t have the means to do this at all. They have the opportunity to do the same thing as Radiohead, but they “only” have a single cd or vinyl to sell as the “deluxe offering”. I think this is a severely difficult subject and I sometimes feel that we are on a totally wrong path when it comes to music and the whole “what is the music worth” bit. I buy books and most of the time they are more expensive than CDs, but I treasure a piece of music as much as a good book…
We shall observe the world of high-profile artists dividing, in the perception of much of the news media at least, into two camps – progressive, generous and sensible folk on one side, greedy corporate sellouts on the other.
We shall also observe many, many greedy sellouts clamboring to position themselves in the progressive camp.
It’s not that hard to tell the difference. So far.
Solid live shows will often define an artist and many of those mentioned above are renowned for their ability performing live. Prince, Radiohead and Jamiroquai each put on an exceptional show and write exceptional music. Those two combined are the best place for an artist to focus, and more often than not result in building a respectable fanbase and probable income.
Flash in the pan music will always exist but longevity is reserved for those with real talent. If the talent extends to the ability to create a marketable, collectible product as in the case of Radiohead; Bonus!
Why I don’t think this is the end of music:
Isn’t Radiohead also selling a shiny box with a cd in it? Frankly, if I had a choice between a piece of code, vs. a piece of plastic I could show off to my friends (and myself), I would choose the latter. Second, there’s a subtle psychological factor in asking people who want to download the album to at least register with a credit-card. It’s like hanging a sign up, saying “serious people only!”, meaning people who could afford to pay a few bucks. And, last but not least, concerts. I’m pretty sure that Radiohead is sold out, no matter where they go. Isn’t it time to decrease an artist’s reliance on the power of distributors?
And why it might be the end of music:
That said, I do have an alternative scenario. Radiohead’s system only works for established artists. New artists will incur significant recording and promotional costs and will be forced to look for sponsors, and sell their soul away. So yeah, it does feel like a bubble. I am however ignoring the myspace-factor.
There are many reasons to allow “free” downloads of music. Most of them function as some kind of publicity generator for a further product.
Radiohead are giving away their downloads as 160kbps files. This is the really smart bit. That mp3 compression rate is fine to appraise the content, but many RH fans are audiophiles/audiosnobs and will want the album in it’s better CD and vinyl formats.
Oasis and JK may be hopping on the bandwagon but if they are serious about furthering their careers without the “protection” of a record company they had better have a sound business plan behind the giveaway.
I’d like to express that “Free music” may serve well for the wealthy musician who can afford to give away their music in exchange for massive concert turnout and merch sales$$$, but where does that leave the aspiring new artist?
Despite what some others in the industry believe, not all musicians dream of touring the road for 9 months out of the year to support a career as a glorified t-shirt salesman.
almost a week on and the inevitable fallout has already started…..low quality mp3′s only announced 24 hrs before certain people (stupidly) paid £40 or more on pre-order…..
one of our bands (the crimea) has had their album up as a free download since may. they have had 60,000 downloads so far and considering their last album (through warners)only sold 8,000, we are viewing it as a huge success. the album is also for sale in the shops here in the uk and has sold a couple of thousand so far. merch sales are up and the band are about to play their biggest headline gig thus far at bush hall, london.
BUT, i wouldn’t recommend this route for everybody. the crimea had nowhere else to go. the media were not interested in them and no label would touch them (8,000 sales). even if they had, i doubt very much that they would be able to get the album into 60,000 homes.
i think this model only works if you have no other options open to you. once you have done it, there’s no going back. i think radiohead fans will probably demand the same model for future albums, so any new label signing the band are going to struggle with that (unless they cut them in on the profits).
we also manage ash, watch this space for their new business model launching next year……