Radiohead won't repeat 'In Rainbows' giveaway

Radiohead made it official: the band won't be giving away music like it did with the album In Rainbows.

"I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation," the band's lead singer Thom Yorke told The Hollywood Reporter. "It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do. I don't think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time."

Many music fans had hoped that the band's now famous pay-what-you-want promotion was an attempt by the group to discover a new way to sell music. Now it appears Radiohead at best was after publicity.

Radiohead has never revealed the promotion's sales figures but there was speculation that the money wasn't very good. Nine Inch Nails, led by Trent Reznor, followed Radiohead by offering the digital version of the album Ghosts I-IV for free as well as charging for premium versions. Reznor said last month that to that point the album had generated 781,917 transactions and $1.6 million.

Reznor was critical of Radiohead during an interview with The Chicago Tribune.

"I think the way (Radiohead) parlayed it into a marketing gimmick has certainly been shrewd," Reznor said. "But if you look at what they did, it was very much a bait and switch, to get you to pay for a MySpace quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale."

It appears now that among marquee artists, no one is doing more to experiment with the Internet as a distribution channel or alternative music-business models than Reznor.

[russkeller]

Kudo's to Radiohead

They kick started changes in the music industries business model and deserve to be recognized for that. The work is far from finished but as long as the artists like them continue to promote the changes in a positive way it'll all work out in the end.

[oldguytoo]

Radiodread

NIN made a whopping $2.04 per transaction. <br />Trent and R. Head both realized they won't be making nearly as much money as they did using the traditional business model - selling CDs thru a label.<br />Trent will rant and rave to get the media hype and if he throws enough against the wall, something is bound to stick. Radiohead will embrace CD's/vinyl again - just like they did after their experiment.<br />Support your local record store...

[SeizeCTRL]

Missing something

What about how much money it takes to burn, print, package and ship out those CDs? Only thing you have to worry about with digital is the bandwidth and I am betting that is tons lower than the physical means of getting music.<br /><br />I applaud both Radiohead and NIN for going against the grain and doing their own thing in both music and getting it to the fans.

[floob2000]

$2.04

Reznor made $2.04 per transaction! <br /><br />That's a whopping lot more than he would get after the label and marketers and brick-n-mortar stores take their cut. <br /><br />Sounds like good business to me, considering most people still aren't used to buying whole albums online, and it was an all-instrumental album, which rarely sells well anyway.<br /><br />Reznor's tiered pricing system was probably a better idea than Radiohead's pay anything model.

[The_Decider]

12 cents per transaction is considerably less then $2.04

I guarantee he made considerably more money then he ever would have if he were still owned by a major label.

[oldguytoo]

additional costs

Burning, shipping, packaging all equals jobs, which help drive the economy. <br />Computer geeks have found a way to steal music, and the artists are responding to them as to not loose fans = potential sales. It has morphed from there to some sort of justification (of getting "free" music) and fight against the "power" (traditional business model) for the geek generation.<br /><br />Plus, artists have lost a great pallet - the album cover. It was (still can be) a great medium to express themselves visually along with their aural efforts.<br /><br />All I'm saying is that Radiohead and NIN have backed off their free pursuit because of their loss of revenue.

[The_Decider]

Trent backed off?

That must be why he is giving away a new album.<br /><br />I got all the packaging materials I would have had I bought it in the store.<br /><br />It may equal jobs but it equals a lot more fingers in the pie. Trent gets every penny of profit now.

[Mr.NoMoniker]

That seems a little unfair.

How can you say with such confidence that it was "simply a marketing gimmick". Thom Yorke said "it was a response to the situation," which, in my understanding was that they had a record finished, but didn't have a label at the time. <br />They wanted to give people the opportunity to hear it, settled on an imperfect format for a flexible price. I don't think it's fair to accuse them of bamboozling the consumer.

[ElectricPotato]

Time to Embrace New Ideas

How can anyone be critical of Radiohead, while the 'old guard' of record companies gather under the banner of the RIAA and sue music fans rather than find a new, efficient means to supply the product.<br /><br />Whether or not they were successful in their experiment, Radiohead took the initiative to try a new business model for distributing their music. I am certain they will not be the last.<br /><br />There is, and will be a market for the CDs for some time to come, but the trend has long shifted to a preference for online and immediate distribution. There needs to be a new delivery system, and I applaud Radiohead for their experimentation.

[Darbalu]

Won't repeat?? What a pitty...

It'd be a shame if Yorke and Radiohead don't repeat this experiment. They started a conversation by doing it, they made a decent amount of money from the downloads and then the physical album had good sales. Just when the labels and the RIAA had to start examining their tactics and business model, Yorke undermines the cause he started. I wonder what pressures the band experienced that we aren't hearing about.

[5thAnimal]

Visiting a website is just a good as paying a toll ..

With every click to a website your contibuting to their profits . Don't feel bad for downloading for free. The Rainbow album sucked anyways. Ever since Kid A, their has been a sharp decline in their creative energy and good songs. <br />They need to step back and work with a new producer. Turn down the egos and focus on the music.

[JeanJacquesSmoothie]

A stupid move

Well this seems crazy to me. I really thought that Radiohead had broken away from the wider music industry and looked to change the way music is bought and sold. Its very sad that they have chickened out already. How many more box sets and concert tickets did they sell as a result? Probably a lot.<br /><br />www.jeanjacquessmoothie.com

[oldguytoo]

geek venom

I sense a lot of venom from the geek community toward the traditional music industry. It seems to be getting stronger. Is it misplaced because the movie and game industries aren't as easy to crack?<br />Traditional music industry methods create long term careers for many of the artists signed to labels, and give a lot of lesser signed artists a chance to realize their dreams.<br />Just because the technology is advancing at a quicker pace than the legal oversight doesn't mean it's morally right or justified to rip copyrighted music from the artists, (or any of the support system).<br />Find the middle ground before the overall quality of music dillutes.