| Longtime Radiohead fan DJ Urban Kobbb plunked down $16 for In Rainbows. Listen to a sample of Videotape (playing now) absolutely free! |
Their new release, In Rainbows, is only available via Radiohead’s extremely cool and extremely simple and straight-forward Web site. And it has no set price. That’s right, you pay what you want to pay!
How do you go about deciding what to pay? Well, the download is not really as valuable as a CD (no cool album art or liner notes), so maybe you pay less than a typical CD. The download is worth more than an iTunes download, because it is in MP3 format. iTunes sells MP4s, which have limited portability. So, somewhere between a typical CD and $.99 per song seems about right. The problem is that I buy almost all my music online, and can’t remember what a CD actually costs.
Then there’s math and exchange rates. The download sites asks how much you want to pay in Pound Sterling. In my first attempt, I tried to pay in Pounds, but left the Pence column blank. The site didn’t like that. In the end, I paid 8 pounds and no pence (about $16).
Had I read my Wall Street Journal this morning, I would have paid 6 pounds ($12). I am accustomed to the Pound being worth about $1.50, so the weakening US dollar really nailed me on this one.
The main question is: At $12 or $16, is the album worth it? I can honestly say that had I heard In Rainbows before I purchased it, I would have gladly paid what I did. Radiohead fans will not be disappointed when they listen to the familiar minimalist and melodic songs, led by falsetto voices.
Listening to a Radiohead album for the first time is like seeing a portrait by one of the masters — the beauty is in the detail, or sometimes, lack of it. Radiohead has never been one to clutter an album with anything that doesn’t add to the experience and beauty of their songs. No Trip hop here, In Rainbows is very straightforward, powerful and everything you would expect from one of the most original bands of the last decade.So, I’ve convinced you to go online and by In Rainbows. What’s to keep you from paying $1 for your new Radiohead album? Your conscience. If you are really a fan, you don’t want to rip off your band. If you don’t like Radiohead, you probably won’t go to the site in the first place. If you really hate Radiohead and want to stick it to them, you won’t. There’s no marginal cost to the band of downloading that song to you.
So, maybe you don’t trust downloads, have to have album art or just like to hold things. You can have that, too. You just have to wait until December 3 or so before In Rainbows comes out in what is referred to as a “discbox.”
The discbox contains the In Rainbows CD, a bonus CD from the recording sessions, In Rainbows vinyl LP and a hardcover book. Before you get excited about naming your own price for this collection, just cool it. It will cost about $84.
Radiohead has long been known for their musical genius, but this is true economic genius. It’s costly to manufacture and distribute CDs. So, Radiohead is pushing folks to the download site with an inexpensive alternative. For those who have to have the CD, they will get much more and pay a healthy price.
Radiohead nuts like me will download the CD now and pre-order the discbox, which will arrive just in time for the holidays. Vinyl records are just too cool.
