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Underground > Radio & Music >

Radiohead- In Rainbows

  
  

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Tsuga
23:56 / 01.10.07
So it's newest album by Radiohead, In Rainbows, it's available October 10th, and it's not available at your local record store, or on Itunes; it's a download, and it's up to you to decide how much you want to pay. There's already a great deal of hype and speculation about what the ramifications will be from a band of this stature releasing an album in this manner. What do you think? Is this huge or meh, and will this gambit work? I'm very curious to see how many people will actually pay when they don't have to.

Oh, and (if it's after Oct. 10, 2007) how is the album?
 
 
Mistoffelees
06:53 / 02.10.07
It´s not just available as a download. You can also get a "discbox" (December 3, 2007). The discbox will contain the physical album on both CD and two 12" heavyweight vinyl records with artwork and lyric booklets. It will also include a bonus Enhanced CD which contains 8 bonus tracks, as well as digital photos & artwork and the digital download. The overall set will be packaged in a hardcover book and slipcase and cost £40.

You will be able to buy the regular CD in record stores in early 2008. link
 
 
grant
15:31 / 02.10.07
The pricing model has gotten the attention of Time magazine, who include the following quote:

"This feels like yet another death knell," emailed an A&R executive at a major European label. "If the best band in the world doesn't want a part of us, I'm not sure what's left for this business."

They also mention Prince's big London album giveaway.

So, symbolically, this is a big deal - a move to a concert-based profit model, I guess.
 
 
Locust No longer
19:54 / 02.10.07
You guys should check out this discussion of the marketing strategy... it gets bogged down in some personal attacks about elitism but has some points I really hadn't considered, although frankly I'm not sure if the points are worth considering...

http://ihatemusic.noquam.com/viewtopic.php?t=7182
 
 
Alex's Grandma
23:47 / 02.10.07
It'll be interesting to see what happens about this, certainly.

I'm not sure if Radiohead are the first band to at least possibly give away their new album over the internet on some sort of honour system, but how very Radiohead it is, in a way - you're one of their fans, so you're in some sense more enlightened than fans of other bands who get their hands dirty with corporate marketing etc.

I remember seeing them on the Kid A tour ages ago, when there was some sort of anti-big business system in place in the tent they were playing in, to do with buying drinks, food, t-shirts etc. Which would have been fair enough I suppose, except that on the long trip from near the front of the stage to the bar outside the tent and back, nobody much appeared to be dancing.

I'm sure they mean well, and that this isn't the, not so much cynical, as perhaps a bit tiring marketing strategy it appears to be after their slightly lacklustre last effort, but it is quite a gamble.

If it's not up to scratch (and I fear the songs sound a bit 'invent a Radiohead title from a list of thirty words') and especially, if it's already been poo-poohed over the internet when it arrives in the shops early next year, then the rest of the band might be entitled to ask Thom some searching questions as to why he's insisted on making things so difficult.

I do hope it's good though.
 
 
DSkogstad
01:12 / 03.10.07
I think this is more about putting out music on their own terms rather than a marketing strategy. I read an interview a few years back where some members of the band said they wished they could just record and put music out online whenever they felt ready rather than have to put up with all the label scheduling of the album, doing media tours, etc.

This seems like compromise between putting out music online whenever they are ready and more traditional albums releases (putting the CD out in stores down the line). It will be interested to see how well the album does for download/discbox sales and also how they plan on distributing the CD to stores without a label contract.
 
 
PatrickMM
01:05 / 05.10.07
I love how a lot of people are treating it like some huge money making conspiracy. I saw one article that said they were actually going to guilt fans into paying more by not setting a price. You want the album for free, you get it for free, it's that simple, but I do think most people will pay something, and for a band like this, with a huge fan base, it's a great deal. They have a lot more control, and get most of the money that would otherwise go to illegal downloads. I'll admit, I probably would have downloaded the album, but I wound up paying $4 for it, and that's probably more than they would have made off a CD.

But, I do think it's a commercial model that's largely dependent on the band's pre-existing fanbase, that was built by its major label exposure. Can a band get as big as they did solely by releasing their music this way? I'm thinking that's not too likely, at this stage in things. Media, music in particular, is getting so fractured, we're going to have fewer and fewer bands like Radiohead, with a really huge fanbase. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just is.
 
 
PatrickMM
01:06 / 05.10.07
And in all the craziness about the release pattern, it's easy to overlook the fact that a new Radiohead album popped up out of nowhere and will available in a mere five days. That's what's really exciting about all this.
 
 
pfhlick
03:21 / 05.10.07
I am really happy to see a totally massive band doing something like this! I think that a sliding scale payment model might be viable for many more bands - indeed, fickle consumers might force something like this on large swaths of the music industry. Certainly, there will be bugs to work out, but they seem to have put a great deal of thought into this release. Radiohead vinyl has always been expensive, but their "discbox" or whatever looks like a decent deal for the collector, and scum like myself, who like them alright but haven't bought an album since ok computer, will go and take their album for free.

Is there any print/radio/tv promotion going for this release, or is it all internet buzz and gossip columns?
 
 
Spaniel
08:06 / 05.10.07
I'd be really interested to know what Copey's Brick thinks about this.

Copey?
 
 
Mon Oncle Ignatius
12:03 / 05.10.07
Aranos attempted something like this a few years back with his Magnificent! Magnificent! No One Knows The Final Word CD, though is his case it was a physical CD produced in a hand-made, fair trade paper sleeve. You sent him your address, he sent you the CD, then you decided how much it was worth and set him the money.

However, I notice that Aranos now sells the album for 16EUR on his webshop, so maybe the experiment wasn't that successful. Or it could just have been that, an experiment.

Someone with the particular fanbase of Radiohead doing this will probably do OK from this particular sales tactic. I do wonder if the tracks will still end up on the PTP networks.
 
 
haus of fraser
17:19 / 05.10.07
It all sounds rather intriguing to me- i'm not surprised that Radiohead want to loose the shackles and overheads of a record label. Its been the thing to do since the Beatles set up Apple records way way back in the 60's. Not that many bands have made huge successes out of them though... They often forget that many of the people in their offices have been working their arses off plugging and promoting their product for months, terribly inconvienent.

It's going to be interesting to see the profits that are made over the next few months- and whether the eventual release of a physical copy will sell or flop. Will this be a one off or will it work out ok? Although they are definitely setting a benchmark, i can only see this working for a band as big as Radiohead.

The millions of new bands with Myspace sites and websites allowing downloads have proved you can give a song away- but it doesn't mean you will become successful- the promotional juggernaut of a record label comes in handy here. Labels also have the advantage over playlists- MTV, capital, XFM, radio 1, etc etc- will sadly only compile heavy rotation playlists from certain favoured (backhanded) labels. While i'm sure all these outlets will still play radiohead, it's because they have a massive following already and are just meeting consumer demands- it doesn't mean they will play ball when your poxy band come a calling with your self released download only free record.

This makes it difficult to get the traditional exposure that is still really needed if a band is to succeed. Currently really big live bands come from getting Hits, and much as Radiohead like to pretend they don't make hits, would this release really work without having written Creep, My Iron Lung, Paranoid android etc?

The legal implications are also huge- does this mean that if i download the album from a bit torent it is now legal? It would certainly be an interesting court case.

I was talking with a colleague about a similar predicament when Ash announced they were no longer going to release albums. Their idea is to release tracks online as and when they are ready- this seems a little more crazy. IMHO the beauty of an album package is that it allows promotion to be concentrated on one package of say 12 songs rather than 12 little packages each of which need promotion- it also tests the patience of even the most devoted fan- waiting for something new every few months, i'm sure the novelty will where off pretty quickly.

George Michael is an artist who declaired similar intentions a few years ago- although he certainly has released subsequent records- i'm not a big enough fan to know whether he released tracks initially online first? It's worth noting his waning popularity, i know he didn't manage to sell out his wembley show, this once would have been unthinkable- while he still has a deal, you have to wonder whether fucking off your label is always the best thing to do.

The record industry is certainly changing but i don't think its the end of the trad record label just yet. Another very rich band, wanting a bit more control..
IMHO it'll be much more interesting to watch what happens with an act like ash, who don't have the following of radiohead.
 
 
Spaniel
19:30 / 05.10.07
Any ideas whether this sort of thing will have repercussions for people like you? I noted your rather mixed feelings about downloading music.
 
 
Locust No longer
15:27 / 10.10.07
I find that the digital downloads being of such a low bit rate quality to be rather underhanded in a way, especially for those who actually paid cash for the songs. I don't particularly care for Radiohead anyway, but that certainly made me lose a little respect for what they are doing.
 
 
deja_vroom
23:52 / 10.10.07
A quick aside: There's a word the music in "In Rainbows". "Nondes-fucking-cript". You may call me simplistic, but I think these dudes are just afraid to rock...
 
 
Tsuga
23:58 / 10.10.07
So, are you saying that the music is nondescript? I've not even been able to listen to it all yet, but what I've heard wasn't that, anyway. I think maybe I will call you simplistic. Yes. I will.

Okay, I won't. Not yet, anyway, I've got to hear it. Are there any reports of how many paid versus total downloads yet?
 
 
PatrickMM
01:32 / 11.10.07
I would agree about the need to rock. I've only heard the album a couple of times so far, but a lot of the songs were brilliantly building and never quite made it to a climax. The best part of the OK Computer songs is when they ascend into the swirling exultation of moments like "Lucky"'s "Pull me ououout of the aircrash," or the transition from "Rain down" to that guitar riff in "Paranoid Android."

The problem I have with a lot of their later work is that the songs, and to some extent, the albums stick with one mood. I listened to Amnesiac the other day and all the songs have the same mood and pace. There's some good moments, but it gets a bit repetitive. This album is much better, but I would have loved some bigger moments.
 
 
PatrickMM
01:33 / 11.10.07
Still, even after a couple of listens, it's strong, and an interesting evolution of the sound they've been developing over the course of the decade.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
02:09 / 11.10.07
Thom Yorke is a normal bloke.

He has this image, but I have it on good authority that he's mainly into Lucy Pinder and Eurodisney, which he have shares in. Also, he likes nothing so much in his down time as relaxing with a lovely cup of tea. The days of staring blankly at ... corpses, just to see if they're still alive, are behind him now.

Or so he says
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:01 / 11.10.07
I like this album.

'Weird Fishes' is a very good song, which made me feel a bit weepy on the train this morning.
 
 
grant
18:33 / 11.10.07
If you're interested in knock-on effects, Madonna just dumped her label for a concert promotion company.
 
 
imaginary mice
19:13 / 11.10.07
So… er… is the site broken now? I entered an amount, then registered, then was asked to confirm the amount of £0.00. I couldn’t be bothered to go back and change it, so I left it at £0.00 and then I was given an activation code and I'm listening to the album right now. I provided my address when I registered but not my credit card details. I thought there would be a transaction fee? I'm confused.
 
 
simulated stereo
21:33 / 11.10.07
I'm listening to it now and first impressions are that it's a little better than Hail to the Thief, which just hasn't aged that well for me. Not that it's a bad album or anything, but coming after a run like The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac it's kind of a letdown. So far the standout tracks for me are "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi", "Faust Arp", "Reckoner", and "Videotape".

Thing is, this really doesn't feel like an album for a couple of reasons. First, most of these songs are pretty old, some were played during the OK Computer tour and a lot of the others are from the Kid A/Amnesiac tours. Second, Whenever a band I like releases a new album, the first thing I do is put it on and pour over the book--pictures, lyrics, credits, whatever. And I can't exactly do that for another few months. for me, listening to albums is a ritual, one that I've been engaging in since I was five years old and it's hard to get excited or 160kbps MP3 files.

So call it an odds n' sods collection and an experiment in distribution, two things Radiohead haven't done before. But it's pretty hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for this.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:59 / 11.10.07
I find it much more convincing as an album than Hail to the Thief (See What We Did There?), which despite my love for 'There There' was the album which made me sort of lose faith in the band a bit. What's really notable about In Rainbows is that it's thematically as well as sonically cohesive - there seems to be more about love on this than any of their previous albums.
 
 
Tsuga
22:16 / 11.10.07
Mice, I think that if you enter 0.00 there's no transaction fee, because there is no money transaction. If you decided to pay one pence, there would be a 42p(I think) fee for the transaction on top of that, giving a grand total of 43p.
I'm going to want a copy at a higher bitrate later, and artwork is a great element sometimes, but for my enjoyment of an album, it's all about the music.
Speaking of music, I'm not understanding the lack of appreciation for HTTT, honestly. I think maybe a third of the songs didn't work too much for me, but that's true of all of their albums. The songs that do work are fantastic. I mean, overall, I think Amnesiac was weaker, but I'm still really fond of most of those songs.
I'm only now listening to this thing all the way through, but there's alot of noise around here and it's on crappy speakers— I'll enjoy it when I can really listen to it. Just how many of these songs are old reworked ones? I know "Nude" is, but what else?
I'd like to find out what songs will be the bonus tracks on the boxed set, is that known at all or speculated on?
 
 
Tsuga
22:17 / 11.10.07
By the way, listening to "All I Need" right now and it's pretty fucking good.
 
 
imaginary mice
11:49 / 12.10.07
Btw – I did want to pay something and I did enter and confirm an amount. But once I had registered it had reset itself to zero and because the site was so slow I decided not to go back and change it again. I’m curious how many other people experienced the same problem but I guess there’s no way of finding out.

I’ve only listened to it once so far and to me it just sounded very, very Radiohead. I was expecting more progress. But I’m sure it will grow on me, especially if I pay more attention to the lyrics (I was daydreaming on the way to work). It also seems to be more of a late night album than an early morning soundtrack.
 
 
deja_vroom
02:58 / 13.10.07
Oh my god radiohead I'm sorry. I've just now tipped to the other side, where I'm actually quite impressed with this album. Jonny Greenwood's guitars are amazing, so subtle, understated and classy (the way they kick in in the first song, or other songs in this album where the guitar licks are just clean and reverbey and just *so elegant*) - he's just doing something else instead of the fast shredding of yore, and it works so well; the focus they gave to Yorke's voice this time, it's amazing. Small touches, small interventions, everything quite subdued, and it's very pretty; some ideas like the kid's chorus, that is a fucking genius idea... There's stuff that's really not for me, like "Bodysnatchers", but I'm actually quite happy with "In Rainbows"... hot damn, I really wasn't expecting to like it...
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
09:19 / 13.10.07
So, What Price Did You Choose?
 
 
Tsuga
16:30 / 13.10.07
Well, that was fast. There is already a remix out there by Mojib of Videotape.

From ateaseweb, I also saw a quote from Jonny Greenwood on the bitrate issue:
I don’t know, we talked about it and we just wanted to make it a bit better than iTunes, which it is, so that’s kind of good enough, really. It’s never going to be CD quality, because that’s what CD does.
 
 
Locust No longer
17:19 / 14.10.07
I'm sorry, that's such a lame answer from Greenwood. It basically defeats the whole purpose of them offering it as some high and mighty fuck off to the music industry. They could make it lossless or at least make it better than the 160 bit rate with little effort. I feel bad for people who actually paid for the lossy files. What crap.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:38 / 15.10.07
IHAVENOIDEAWHATYOUARETALKINGABOUT

I hope somebody hurries up and does a big full-on remix of 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place' - it's just crying out for it with all that "the beat goes round and round!" business.
 
 
Seth
14:34 / 29.10.07
This is quite a stunning album, isn't it? I'm near the end of my first listen... it's very Marillion (I'm thinking particularly Brave and Marbles), in a way that could probably only really have come about by coincidence, but in a way that makes me happy that there's at least one band that can get respected for doing this kind of thing.

I like it much more than Hail to the Thief, which never grabbed me for a second. It's a lot more cohesive, has much more attention paid to the fine detail of getting quality sounds and plush arrangements, much better songs... very pleased that they're back on their a-game (for me at least).
 
 
Robert B
03:02 / 31.10.07
After listening to the album for a few weeks now, I have to say it's one of my favorites. It is lacking in some of the sonic abuse that OK Computer delivered but it is still very intense. Particularly "All I Need" and even "Video Tape" which seems to unwind into nothing even though it seems to be building to something. My wife's first reactions was that they had gotten old and lost their edge. They are older but I think the music still has an edge. Maybe it's just not as cutting? She likes more songs of this one than most of the others.

Thematically In Rainbows almost seems to fit in with OK Computer and Kid A into some kind of weird trilogy.
 
 
Seth
21:21 / 31.10.07
I'm not sure Radiohead ever had an *edge* (not for want of comparisons to a certain other band), all we need from them is good songs that sound nice.
 
  

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