Dec 19 2007
Told Ya
Me on Nov. 29th about In Rainbows:
"I think the big story here isn't the "pay what you want" sales model. It's the new time line for releasing records and figuring out how a band can take advantage of it. Instead of recording an album and sitting on it for four months while the label gets their marketing plan together, just release it for cheap on the internet (low bitrate files aimed squarely at people's iPods) as soon as it's done and then follow it up with the proper physical release when the label is ready. This way the band "leaks" their own album... "
Thom Yorke as interviewed by David Byrne:
Byrne: I'll start by asking some of the business stuff. What you did with this record wasn't traditional, not even in the sense of sending advance copies out to the press and such.
Yorke: The way we termed it was "our leak date." Every record for the last four — including my solo record — has been leaked. So the idea was like, we'll leak it, then.
Byrne: Previously there'd be a release date, and advance copies would get sent to reviewers months ahead of that.
Yorke: Yeah, and then you'd ring up and say, "Did you like it? What did you think?" And it's three months in advance. And then it'd be, "Would you go do this for this magazine," and maybe this journalist has heard it. All these silly games.
Byrne: That's mainly about the charts, right? About gearing marketing and prerelease to the moment a record comes out so that — boom! — it goes into the charts.
Yorke: That's what major labels do, yeah. But it does us no good, because we don't cross over [to other fan bases]. The main thing was, there's all this bollocks [with the media]. We were trying to avoid that whole game of who gets in first with the reviews. These days there's so much paper to fill, or digital paper to fill, that whoever writes the first few things gets cut and pasted. Whoever gets their opinion in first has all that power. Especially for a band like ours, it's totally the luck of the draw whether that person is into us or not. It just seems wildly unfair, I think.
Posted by Kyle in Misc. Music | Permalink
Comments
In the past, Radiohead *did* get something out of those leaks. A leak was a major news event. It told everybody a new album was coming soon. It started the feeding frenzy. Very valuable from a PR point of view.
(I loved how the band acted like it was mad about those leaks. Yeah right. I always thought the band leaked their own music. They knew how to whet consumers' appetites. They understood the value of that buzz. Although, now that everything leaks early, it's not as much an event as it used to be.)
But Yorke is right. If it's going to leak, why not "leak" it yourself and make some money in the process? If not, you're just throwing away the value people place on getting the music immediately.
Posted by: Glenn at December 19, 2007 2:21 PM
