music: October 2007 Archives
Goodness gracious! The new album from Saul Williams (with much help from Trent Reznor) is now available for pre-ordering at niggytardust.com. Like Radiohead's latest release, this album is available online for either $0 or $5. For $5 you receive all 192kbps mp3 files in addition to 320kbps mp3 and FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files. Plus you feel the warmth of generosity for supporting two amazing artists. I certainly don't mind coughing up the five bucks. I will be preordering mine tonight.
Hi friends. Tonight I'll be spending the next six hours installing Windows on a new hard drive, attempting to salvage all of my music and photos, drinking whiskey, and listening to the new Radiohead album.
Most of you (all three of my readers) probably know this, but the new Radiohead album, IN RAINBOWS, came as quite a surprise to many. It's been two or three years since Hail to the Thief, Radiohead's last LP, and aside from worldwide touring and photographs on their website, nobody really knew when the next album would drop. Well, as fate would have it, those of us who have signed up for the Radiohead mailing list (and their friends and pretty much the rest of the world) received an email about ten days ago announcing that they would be releasing their latest album today.
Oh, but it gets better. Much better. The album, so far, is only available online. You can either purchase it in the digital form, or preorder a disc-box that will arrive some time in December. What's even better? You pay as much as you want. Zero pounds? Five pounds? A million pounds? It's yours. How fucking crazy is that?
Being the charitable soul that I am, I decided to pay one British pound for In Rainbows, which I think translated to about $1.47 charged to my credit card. This morning I received an email containing a link which allowed me to download a .zip file containing the ten, 160-kbps [sic!], DRM-free mp3 files. Easiest thing in the world. Right now the In Rainbows site is down, but when I downloaded the .zip file this morning I got great network speeds.
This means that, for the price I chose, I can now freely and legally distribute this album to whomever I want. Since Radiohead made this album completely by themselves, without a label or anything, it is solely owned by them, and, by extension, their fans. This is fucking incredible. I'm not the most knowledgeable music snob in the world, but I can't think of anybody (maybe Phish, but I'm not sure) who has done something like this before. And you know what? Radiohead will still make a killing from this album. They are always performing to sold-out shows and their merchandise sells like wildfire. They attract enough publicity to get the word out, and their fanbase is strong worldwide.
This method of delivery is truly the next great trend for musicians who are serious about their work and care more about their fans and their art than making money and bowing to (yes, I'm about to say it) big, evil corporations. Now it seems that other artists, including Oasis* and Jamiroquai, are following suit in this method. And Trent Reznor, who has been bitching about his record label since March or so, is now free from his contract with Interscope as well.
Does this mean the downfall of gigantic record labels and the RIAA? I doubt it. But it certainly gives them much cause for alarm, as more and more people realize that these behemoth money machines are no longer needed for great musicians with a solid mass of followers.
*fuck Oasis.
