We Hope Your Rules and Wisdom Choke You
0 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Tuesday, October 2 at Tuesday, October 02, 2007.
The best band in the world just happen to be one of the smartest as well:
The other side of the deal, discussed in minor detail later in the article, is that they are selling the physical album as a super-premium "discbox", including an audio CD, a media CD full of photos, video clips, extra songs and bonus stuff, and two 12-inch vinyl records of the album. It all comes packaged in a beautiful hardcover book and slipcase, and knowing previous album liners, that book will be full of weird and beautiful stuff. Price tag? £40 - the equivalent of four regular albums.
Pretty much every hardcore Radiohead fan with a credit card and a monthly income (and there is, scientifically speaking, shitloads of them) will buy that box, and at such a premium price, I can imagine it will massively cross subsidize all the $1 downloads. For me, this is the future for the music business - cheap downloads and premium-priced physical albums that come with tonnes of lovely real-world stuff.
CRITICALLY acclaimed and wildly successful British rock band Radiohead left news organisations and music industry types scratching their chins this week after announcing that it would essentially be giving its latest album away. Fans can currently pre-order the album at the band's website, but clicking through to the checkout page, a buyer finds himself confronted by blank boxes. The amount to be paid is, according to the site, "up to you." Presumably, that amount might well be zero dollars and cents, or pounds and pence, give or take the credit card processing fee. (The Economist)This may be the reason that I am not a management consultant or financial planner, but to me, this is a genius business model for the music industry. Digital music just isn't worth $10-15 per album to a lot of people - and for the majority of those people, they choose to pay zero instead, downloading a copy for free. Even if you only get $1 from each of these users, it is better than zero - and real fans, or people with money to spend, will probably price the album value much higher than that.
The other side of the deal, discussed in minor detail later in the article, is that they are selling the physical album as a super-premium "discbox", including an audio CD, a media CD full of photos, video clips, extra songs and bonus stuff, and two 12-inch vinyl records of the album. It all comes packaged in a beautiful hardcover book and slipcase, and knowing previous album liners, that book will be full of weird and beautiful stuff. Price tag? £40 - the equivalent of four regular albums.
Pretty much every hardcore Radiohead fan with a credit card and a monthly income (and there is, scientifically speaking, shitloads of them) will buy that box, and at such a premium price, I can imagine it will massively cross subsidize all the $1 downloads. For me, this is the future for the music business - cheap downloads and premium-priced physical albums that come with tonnes of lovely real-world stuff.
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