You're all probably fully aware of what a groundbreaking album In Rainbows by Radiohead is – it's the first time that people have been able to choose how much they want to pay to hear a bunch of wonky-eyed millionaires whine about stuff.
And, by offering In Rainbows on a 'pay what you like' download-only basis free of any interference by record labels, Radiohead's experiment seems to have paid off. It's been reported that eager Radiohead fans swamped their website with such vigour on In Rainbows' first day of release yesterday that their website crashed. Although this proves that the world is still head over heels with Radiohead despite their last couple albums being rubbish, the In Rainbows website crash should also be a warning to other artists who plan to release music in the same way shortly – like 1984 seventh-placed UK Eurovision entries Belle & The Devotions, who are lining up an album of Norwegian slåttemusikk covers played in the new disco style that the young people like these days.
Yup, they'll need to bolster their server for sure.
Radiohead have always been a band who like to take risks – they didn't want to play Live 8, for example, putting them directly at odds with, um, The Stereophonics – but right now they're making history by taking the biggest risk of their career. Free of a record contract, Radiohead have told their fans to pay what they want for their new album In Rainbows, for the moment exclusively available from Radiohead's website. Following Prince giving away his new album free with right-wing newspapers and shortly before The Charlatans give their new album away on the internet – though we suspect that last one's possibly because they'd have only sold about ten records anyway – Radiohead's stunt has got people babbling about the death of the music industry like never before.
But, to Radiohead's credit, the In Rainbows plan seems to have worked – yesterday's launch of In Rainbows was such a success that Radiohead's website temporarily crashed. That's right – Radiohead are now as popular as Kate Moss' knickers. The Mirror reports:
Fans who were told they could pay what they liked for Radiohead's new album In Rainbows crashed the website yesterday on its release. The band has made history by not listing a price for an album – their website simply states: "It's up to you." It means fans can pay as little as 45p – the cost of the credit card handling fee – or up to £100. But yesterday fans trying to download the album reported difficulties getting onto the website.
Of course, Radiohead don't want to tell anyone exactly how many people have bought In Rainbows yet – or how many people paid 1p for it – but the rush to download the album seems to suggest that the band will do OK. However, it's not all good news – by hyping In Rainbows around a marketing gimmick like they have, and without the album being in stores to gee-up impulse buys, there's a good chance that hardly anyone will buy Radiohead's album after, say, next week. Also, it's all well and good for a massive band like Radiohead to sell their record on the internet in a blaze of publicity, but if this is the future of music then new bands are going to struggle like never before.
But that's all stuff to worry about another time, because Radiohead now get to a) roll about in the money that In Rainbows has created, b) massively overcharge their superfans for the forthcoming physical deluxe In Rainbows box-set, as well as charging more for concert tickets and merchandise on the premise that everyone probably bought In Rainbows for 50p in the first place, and c) use the millions of new contact details that fans gave when downloading In Rainbows for their future marketing assaults. All this, coupled with the fact that all the money made from the sale of In Rainbows will bypass the record labels and go straight to the band, it all adds up to something that'd even make a miserable bunch of sods like Radiohead crack a smile.
And as for In Rainbows itself? Well, we don't usually like paying for things on the internet – the last web purchase we made burst right when we were in the middle of using her – but we've never been ones to turn our nose up at cheap music so we threw a couple of quid Radiohead's way and it turns out that In Rainbows is actually pretty good, and oddly somewhat Christmassy. Certainly better than the last two Radiohead albums, although In Rainbows could have consisted of nothing more than the sound of a clown farting on a girl and making her cry and it would have been better than the last two Radiohead albums.
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