LP7 whut?

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:38 am

Today Radiohead decided that they're coming out with a new album on October 10. It is called In Rainbows. They're giving it away for free as mp3 downloads, or charging 40 brit dollars/80 real dollars for the super mega vinyl + cd + bonus disc + art book blowout pack.

Track list:
CD 1 AND VINYL
15 STEP
BODYSNATCHERS
NUDE
WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI
ALL I NEED
FAUST ARP
RECKONER
HOUSE OF CARDS
JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE
VIDEOTAPE

CD 2 AND VINYL
MK 1
DOWN IS THE NEW UP
GO SLOWLY
MK 2
LAST FLOWERS
UP ON THE LADDER
BANGERS AND MASH
4 MINUTE WARNING

Most or all of these songs have been floating around the internets in bootleg form for a while but I've only recently started downloading them so I haven't really formed any proper opinions on them. Has anybody else given these a good listening? People are saying that this album will be as good as OK:Computer which I'm a bit skeptical of, but I don't think there's any way this will be bad, either.

Plaztik · Post by **Plaztik** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:48 am

no "hi i'm new" thread?

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:56 am

Well if you want one

I've actually been a member here for a while, since the pre-Sektor 7 days. I just hardly ever post and I'm sure the few that I have made probably got pruned away years ago.

I just figured I'd post this because I found out about Radiohead on here like four years ago so I've always had some kind of subconscious association or something.

So, like, yeah.

Plaztik · Post by **Plaztik** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:02 am

shhhh...don't mention Sektor 7 around here. It leaves a bad taste in every SG-oldie's mouth.
Also subconscious association is a good thing if the members here had any association... or a conscious even

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:35 am

its pretty awesome that they're doing this! this bodes really well, given that they haven't made a good album in 7 years. i won't have to waste too much money on it if it stinks.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 2:19 pm

Free Radiohead is good Radiohead.

And everyone here loves talking about how much Sektor 7 sucked.

It's like the only thing we/they ever talk about.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:11 pm

What the fuck's a brit dollar?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:34 pm

That thing you spend.

You know, the one you pretend is a "pound", but it definitely doens't weigh anything close to that.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 7:15 pm

That is true.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:10 pm

Counts.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:16 pm

i gave em 10 bux

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:32 pm

This is a pretty cool experiment on their end. Of course the super mega discbox costs a bit more than it probably should to offset all the freeloaders, but it seems like a lot of people are willing to pay in the 5-10 dollar range as well, even though they're given the option of legitimately having it for free. I usually download all of my music/movies/software/tv, but I know if more companies had pricing schemes similar to this (not necessarily a name your own price thing, but things were just cheaper), I'd buy things a lot more often.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:50 pm

The RDM is more inclined to go the free rout, since he's hella broke, and what little money he has is worth less and less each day (fucking Bush...).

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:39 am

patthew wrote:This is a pretty cool experiment on their end. Of course the super mega discbox costs a bit more than it probably should to offset all the freeloaders, but it seems like a lot of people are willing to pay in the 5-10 dollar range as well, even though they're given the option of legitimately having it for free. I usually download all of my music/movies/software/tv, but I know if more companies had pricing schemes similar to this (not necessarily a name your own price thing, but things were just cheaper), I'd buy things a lot more often.

The thing is, with my $10, it's probably 5 times more than what they usually got from me for an album. This difference alone will compensate for the cheap ones, I think.

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 1:05 am

And god knows they're fucking loaded as it is, so any profits made from album sales will probably go directly into funding whatever tour they go on next.

Now all Radiohead has left to do is tear down the ticketmaster monopoly and start performing public shows or something.

Bazz · Post by **Bazz** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 2:10 am

patthew wrote:if more companies had pricing schemes similar to this (not necessarily a name your own price thing, but things were just cheaper), I'd buy things a lot more often.

Basically you're saying if things cost less you could buy more of them, this is very true

It's not really as genius a marketing campaign as it looks, it's more like an acknowledgment that no matter what they try they can't stop the spread of free music on the internet. It's about time someone did this and the first people to do it are the smartest because some people are likely to donate money for this album because of the novelty aspect of the campaign, once a few more albums are released in this way I doubt people will be so generous.

I'm sure lots more albums will be released in this way, or similar ways, Prince (if that's what he's called now) gave his new album away with copies of an English newspaper, but probably because it was shite.
Apparently the idea was a great success however I can't see how they worked that out when you read the article:
"The Mail reported sales of at least 2.8 million papers last Sunday, compared to the June's Sunday average of 2.276 million, according to figures obtained by the Guardian. Mail on Sunday managing director Steve Miron pegged the cost of the promotion at £1.25 million, including a £250,000 payment to Prince for the rights to the album."
They sold 600k more papers at £1.50 each making them an extra £900k turnover, so it seems to me that they lost at least £350k. Not good business but thats what you get for trusting a midget.

At least radiohead are giving their album away directly, the problem is that less and less people will donate as it becomes more common place for albums to be released in this way, and these bumper collectors packs are nothing but merchandise really, not even useful merchandise like clothing. People won't buy that shit unless they're really into the band, are trying to prove how into the band are, or just have too much money, and those people would have bought band merchandise anyway so it's not really an extra profit.

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:27 am

Bazz wrote:Basically you're saying if things cost less you could buy more of them, this is very true

Haha well if you put it that way

I guess what I meant was that with this model, maybe some sort of equilibrium price where people will be much more inclined to actually buy things will appear, but I do see where you're coming from also.

The only thing that really makes this work right now is that it's Radiohead doing it, and whatever they do makes waves. Like you said, other artists like Price have tried this, and there's also the entire creative commons music scene. The main difference between those two things and Radiohead is that where those two things get very little attention, Radiohead is huge.

But then I got to thinking, would this work out in the long term for the entire music industry? What about the entire entertainment industry? This could conceivably destroy the economy if it went too far. It most likely won't, but still.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:27 am

Radiohead can get away with selling a big expensive set, because there are so many internationat die-hard fans.
I remember when their last albums were out, and Americans were importing the English versions at 3x the price, just for the auhenticity (or whatever).

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:27 am

o rly

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 1:19 pm

It's dirt cheap to produce a music CD. Basically free. They usually sell them for a bunch, and the artists who actually make the CD don't end up getting much of that, the label execs are the ones that clean up on the huge profit margin.

Cutting that shit out is just about the best thing evar. The RDM doesn't mind terribly helping some extremely talented musician become a tiny bit more rich, but he does have a problem inflating the pockets of corporate fatcats who don't really do anything but fuck people over.

Yay cheap music!

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:25 pm

The Robo D Monkey wrote:It's dirt cheap to produce a music CD. Basically free.

That all depends how many you're making, really.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:23 pm

Maybe.

The RDM was talking about the people who make CD's for Radiohead.

And the people like them.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:55 pm

The only radiohead track I like is Creep.
Other than that his voice drives me insane.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 7:51 pm

Now you've made him sad.

Whatever his name is.

Poor guy.

Yuka · Post by **Yuka** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:18 pm

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:13 pm

Yuka wrote:The only radiohead track I like is Creep.
Other than that his voice drives me insane.

Creep's easy to PA on Singstar.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 3:02 pm

Wahoo.

Bazz · Post by **Bazz** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 1:55 am

patthew wrote: But then I got to thinking, would this work out in the long term for the entire music industry? What about the entire entertainment industry? This could conceivably destroy the economy if it went too far. It most likely won't, but still.

If it becomes common place to do this it's gonna be pretty interesting. For a new band it'd have mixed consequences, on the one hand it's good because it'll make it easier for more people to hear their music, but on the other hand people probably won't pay to download something which they might not like, so making money at the start could be hard.

The RDM wrote:It's dirt cheap to produce a music CD. Basically free. They usually sell them for a bunch, and the artists who actually make the CD don't end up getting much of that, the label execs are the ones that clean up on the huge profit margin.

Cutting that shit out is just about the best thing evar. The RDM doesn't mind terribly helping some extremely talented musician become a tiny bit more rich, but he does have a problem inflating the pockets of corporate fatcats who don't really do anything but fuck people over.

I don't think this will cut out the fatcats, in this case the fat cats were alread out of the loop because radiohead aren't tied to any record label, they could have had the cd's pressed themselves and made more money that way.
I doubt the percentage record companies take would be effected by the method of distribution of the media, all it means in terms of musicians getting money is that they'd still get a small cut but of a smaller amount.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 1:24 pm

Until they all learn to spurn the major labels and represent themselves.

Then they can give themselves 90 points!

Bazz · Post by **Bazz** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:38 pm

Maybe radiohead should start their own label and give away all the albums free, that'd be good.

Endless-Rain · Post by **Endless-Rain** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:05 pm

they should call their label Fake Plastic Trees, and have their office at Canary Wharf, just to be ironic

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:12 pm

Your references are too obscure, young man.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:22 pm

They really aren't

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:24 pm

If it takes the RDM a second, they are.

He demands to know instantly.

Bazz · Post by **Bazz** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:49 pm

The RDM should pretend to know instantly, so he will appear more hip.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:21 pm

The RDM is too honest for that.

Honestly.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:10 pm

I still don't know it, tbh.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:16 pm

Google it, then.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:21 pm

160 kbps.

FAIL. I totally regret giving $10 now. Especially since they charged me and they haven't given me any update through mail yet.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:06 pm

Frown.

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:01 am

160 kbps is better than what itunes has been giving out for the same price.

Also, it is now the tenth in England. I know a couple more hours after a four year wait shouldn't be a big deal, but seriously. I'm willing to bet there'll be a huge server meltdown but torrent sites will have their hands on it in a matter of minutes so it won't really matter that much.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:32 am

Well given that there's not a whole lot of free tracks on itunes, I agree.
But still I expected 192 KBPS at the very least.

Looks like I'll repurchase it on CD whenever it gets a label.

I got the mail finally.

patthew · Post by **patthew** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 6:19 am

RADIOHEAD SEEMS TO ENJOY SHOUTING.

I think everybody's getting their emails about now, and the download was surprisingly speedy. The quality is a bit of a bugger but I can live with it until my discbox comes.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 10:36 am

Got it. I want a fucking world tour now!

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:56 pm

There's always something to complain about, eh?

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:32 pm

The Robo D Monkey wrote:There's always something to complain about, eh?

Not really. Do you ever see me complain about amazing things, like the ps3? Didn't think so.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Oct 11, 2007 12:41 pm

You complain about people who don't like the PS3.

That counts, since they're the vast majority.

HKK · Post by **HKK** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:12 pm

I listened to the album back to back last night and it's not sticking yet. I think my favorite song is Arpeggi right now. I think that's one of the best Radiohead songs in a long ass time. The track gives me chills.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:01 pm

What does "sticking" mean in that context?

Kage · Post by **Kage** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 4:29 pm

He meant that those songs ain't playing inside his head over and over again. IMHO.