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Underground > Radio & Music >

Free Downloads

13:48 / 06.03.08

In Rainbows was very probably(*) a financial success for Radiohead when they stuck it on the internet and said, "You can pay what you like!" (but if you want the big physical CD, you'll have to pay more).

Niggy Tardust was by some indications not quite so much a moneymaker - this could be because Radiohead has more fans with disposable income, or because of the way the deal was set up (pay nothing for these mp3s, or pay a little more for these, slightly better-sounding mp3s). It could be because In Rainbows is a better album, too, but let's not go there. (I like both - and have listened to Saul Williams more, but possibly because I find it a little more difficult.)

But Trent Reznor, who produced Niggy Tardust, has just made $750,000 in a matter of days after releasing a four-disc set of instrumentals. It could be that he appeals to a segment of the population with whopping big chunks of disposable income (hello, computer programmer overlords!). But that article puts forward the somewhat more interesting idea that it's because of the way he changed what he was selling. It's not about an album as an end-product any more. The music (at least one disc's worth) is just a free sample.

Where Reznor seems to be making his money is in using the money to persuade people to buy whopping big premiums:

Reznor's strategy of using multiple price points made his music easily accessible to fans. Those who wished to pay nothing could download a free version of Ghosts I. For $5, a digital version of all four albums was available, and for only $10, fans could get all the music on CD along with an immediate digital download. $75 and $300 deluxe versions were also made available and include things like a Blu-ray disc, a DVD of the multitrack audio files from the project, videos, deluxe packaging, and more.

...

Reznor is using five price points to segment his offerings, and the extra work this required appears to have paid off.

So -- is this a good analysis? Is this the future?

(*)No one's exactly sure, but there are some educated guesses.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:07 / 06.03.08

I think it's pretty cool, actually- I like the idea of people making these ultra-deluxe limited editions of things, but I'm not so keen on that pricing people out of the market who'd quite like the album.

I think Reznor's been smart enough to realise that he's got a foot in both camps, and to sell to one without alienating the other. He's said before that he thinks his records are overpriced- obviously he still wants to make cash from them, though. I reckon this is a pretty neat compromise.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:18 / 06.03.08

Talking about the USB cards used in the YZ viral marketing, TR apparently said (I say "apparently" because I just found this quoted on another board without a source) The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want -- DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.

Radiohead seem to have shown that this can work, as does Trent- the question is, can it work for people who don't have their status, and could benefit from the marketing campaign a label can provide? If I released an album tomorrow as a digital download, I wouldn't make any money, because nobody would know about it. Is this an insurmountable difference, or just another hurdle to overcome if we're moving towards a future where this is the norm?

*

17:05 / 06.03.08

Well, there are new ways to get the word out about your music without the marketing campaigns labels excel at. There's Last FM, for one. MySpace is saturated, so not very effective. iTunes is no longer utterly hostile to independents; you won't make much money but you'll get some exposure. YouTube has exposed me to more music than record label marketing camp have in the last year. Then there's music blogs. Finally, the more obscure ways of marketing on the internet—attach your music to a silly game, make a website that's a puzzle or a mystery, hide some of your tracks (or parts of one track?) as easter eggs in random parts of the internet, attach your music to a popular cause... have people lay trails to your website on PMOG. The bands that succeed independently won't necessarily be the ones that are good, they'll be the ones that are very good at coming up with new marketing gimmicks or exploiting existing ones.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:40 / 06.03.08

Oh, that's of course true- but isn't there a difference in scale in the "noticeability" factor? At the moment, I'm guessing Last FM etc aren't how MOST people are finding new music. It's obviously going to increase, but at the moment, is it as viable an option for smaller bands?

The easter eggs idea is a pretty useful one, but people are getting wiser to it, and their standards higher, and you still usually need to pay someone a hefty sum of money to co-ordinate that- it's an industry in itself.

I think I'm agreeing with you in terms of the way things will go, I'm just wondering what it means for people making music NOW.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:50 / 06.03.08

...although thinking about it, wouldn't that also mean you're deliberately limiting access to your music to people who are looking for it, rather than trying to promote it to people who wouldn't otherwise find it? Which, if you're trying to make a living from it, seems a little counter-productive. The counterpoint to all this digital stuff is that people are becoming used to making LESS effort to find stuff.

(I'm trying to figure out a thread about how music is TOO EASY to get now- I never seem to spend as much time with an album these days, because everything I want I can get at the touch of a button. Which means I have a constant inflow of new stuff, which is great- but also means that some music, which in the old days would have been "a grower", doesn't really get the chance now).

02:25 / 07.03.08

I think that "grower" effect (or the loss of it) is what I think about as part of the death of the album. I keep saying it, but music really has only been around on albums for around 50 years, which isn't very long at all. A lot of this download stuff really does have to do with new ways music is getting listened to - the limited access/viral game buzz thing would be part of it.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:13 / 07.03.08

Oh, in the long-run it's not really about how I like music, I know...

...but it's a shame to think that some of my favourite records now I'd have totally overlooked if I hadn't lived with them for a bit first.

11:46 / 07.03.08

I totally agree with that, Stoatie. I don't know how much of the music I love now I started out with a very different feeling for, but it's a lot. It's possible now that if I listen to a sample of some new music online and immediately dismiss it I'm really missing out in the long run. And I do that pretty often now.

13:35 / 07.03.08

For those interested, you can get the new Charlatans album free off of the XFM website. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet but they weren't terrible as I recall.

10:08 / 21.03.08

I'm finding this whole thing daunting.

As a band member who wants to grow my band, I don't even know where to begin. Last year it would have been myspace, but everywhere I look people say "that's out of date" or "that's saturated". As a user, I'm barely on MS any more because none of my friends are.

Putting up a website is great (and we have), but no-one's going to find it by accident. Selling or giving away music is fine (I have no problem with distributing DRM-free digital music).. but again, getting it into the hands of new listeners is tricksy. I don't know anyone in any of my friend circles who spends time reading music blogs (apart from me and one person who writes one).

At least with the old model, we all knew where we stood.

Whilst this sounds like a complaint, it's not. It's an acknowledgement that I/we/bands-in-general need to get more creative. We also need to gig more as I think gigging is now (as indeed it always was) the best way to get a new band off the ground. The old model existed only because some enterprising heads made it happen, so i guess it's time to get more enterprising.

All Acting Regiment

12:15 / 21.03.08

I don't know anyone in any of my friend circles who spends time reading music blogs (apart from me and one person who writes one).

I beleive the idea is to get yourself on a few blogs in different parts of the country and in others*, start being passed around and remixed and so on, and hopefully end up on Hype Machine. This is perhaps why much of the new things one finds on music blogs is in, well, 'cowbell' genres like electro and dance - they naturally suit remixing by the strucure of their tracks/history, and sharing by the nature of their context ... I wonder, do more 'stable' (as in the stability of the songs and the more sedate listening experience, although this is maybe problematic, hmm) genres like folk and blues find the internet a harder place to work through?

*This is why I've got tons of French/Spanish language stuff which I don't understand a word of but still adore ...

06:40 / 22.03.08

kidninjah: the only way to do it is to spend time writing to people on MP3 blogs, MySpace, promoters, bands, labels. Demonstrate that you know what they do and let them know where to find what you do, or send it to them for free. Become a promoter and put bands on in or around your home town, and then swap gigs with them if they happen to be promoters. Start reviewing other people's records online and make sure you give them links to what you've written about them. Do things to spread the word for other people's music and they'll assist you in spreading the word about yours.

This is hard work, but it should be a fairly joyous activity for anyone who cares even a little bit about music.

15:51 / 22.03.08

You ever read The Undercover Economist? It talks about different price points so people can choose how much they want to pay according to their percieved status.

It uses the example of coffeehouse coffee and how special blends costs extravagntly more, while costing little more to produce, but sell well because people choose to buy them because they enjoy paying that bit more. It is a signifier of who they are.

I think anyone sufficiently technical who wants to can get any album for free. So you may as well live with that and monetise your products in different ways.

09:48 / 03.04.08

Buk, Directo, Acting..
Thanks for the tips and ideas on self-promo and getting into blogs, scenes and the music biz in general. Much appreciated!

Adding to this sea change of new music business opportunity, Radiohead are inviting remix of their new Nude single. The catch, for me, is that u have to pay for the "stems", the individual parts.

My first reaction was "Cheeky so-and-so's", charging five times for the "same" music. Then I remembered reading Plasticman's interview in Mixmag recently wherein he talked about having wireless access to all the parts of all the music he wanted to play in sets. The idea bing that a DJ set could be more like a performance of SECTIONS of other peoples' music: the bass from one tune, the vocal from another - whole tracks, not just short samples (which is how most people do it now), all on the fly, from a huge library/shop.

Radiohead's offering feels like a step in this direction.

18:48 / 29.05.08

This is not, I think, a prank: Metallica.

They're trying to get in on it too. But not for free, really.

All Acting Regiment

14:33 / 30.05.08

Leaves a sour taste in the mouth re: Napster.

Also re: Metallica in general. A band for whom my dislike is not simply a dislike for the genre (metal embodies a lot of things I'm not into, a lot of dubious ideas about authenticity and ownership and so on, not to mention the shouting and technical ability without songs, but some people like it, which is fine) but for the way in which they are all quite obviously busters, in the same way that Wyclef Jean is to 'rap' or Steps were to pop. I mean, compare Metallica - Slayer, Wyclef Jean - Jay Z, Steps - Girls Aloud, William Shatner - Tom Baker.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:43 / 30.05.08

Their 'Whisky In The Jar' was quite good, though.