Radiohead - The King Of Limbs (Saturday 19th Feb)

Of course they're being clever to make money out of their fanbase, why wouldn't they be? More artists need to do shit like this just to make the same money nowadays they did in the 90's or early 2000's. If people will pay for it then why not? The music industry is changing and I don't see a problem with a band trying to change with it.
If you're not going to buy the special edition, fine, but why whine about it? It's for the hardcore fans anyway. Most of us will just download the pirated version on Saturday anyway.

To be fair, I don't think the band or anyone is trying to claim that they aren't trying to be commercially succesful, or that they are some kind of bastians of free art, people seem to respect them for being able to be succesful and do it on their own terms, creating hype and sales by using different tactics to the norm and without really the need to spend shit loads of cash on 'marketing' and pander to a major labels demands.

All Radiohead have done for this release is built a very basic website with details of the availibility of the record and a picture of the artwork and its been the most talked about record probably since Kanye's last album. Sure they already have a pretty solid fanbase, but I think there is great virtue in a band showing everyone that you can do it on your own terms if you really want to and you don't have to follow the industry formula that is set in place by the majors to manipulate the fans and artists in equal measure.

it doesn't really show you* could do it on your own terms though, it's only created so much hype because they've such a huge fanbase and they could've announced their new album on the back of a bus ticket and it would still have got the world talking.

*you being a new artist, obviously it would be nice to see other more established acts go down this road.

Yeah but thats the point, if more established acts had the balls to do it on their own, it would set a precedent and maybe the majors would re-evaluate their stance and might start making serious changes and investing in smaller bands, if you can imagine all the big artists in the world with a big enough and loyal enough fanbase deciding they wanted to do it themselves and not be lead by a giant money making business the labels would shit themselves.

But it does also show that small unsigned artists can do it on their own terms, just because you aren't going to sell thousands or even hundreds of records, doesn't mean that you can't make decent albums without a labels help.

All these labels and bands moaning about piracy and stuff is bullshit, they've had it their own way for years now and because they're only making £10million as apposed to £20 million they're throwing their toys out of the pram, at least a band like Radiohead are trying to move with the times and trying positive things with it, look at the hype around this album and the release of In Rainbows, don't tell me U2 or Metallica don't have big enough fan bases to be able to do this, but they're too comfortable letting the labels do all the work and they'd rather spend time ranting about piracy instead of actually trying something new.

Well said...

Its only revolutionary in the distribution sense (In Rainbows). The band had no label and no distribution. They were already one of the biggest bands on the planet commercially at the time and it was unheard of for one of that stature do something like that. It was also revolutionary in terms of how no one knew it was coming and then one day Greenwood posts that its coming in a few days. Very little fanfare or hype preceded it. There wasnt a 6 month wait of speculation.

As for the multiple options, Id assume the band gets the lions share of the box set as its direct sold/distributed, but the only people buying that are the supernerd fans. The download has to be shared as they have to pay for the hosting and undoutedly there will be TB of data transferred, and then the "regular" version is standard record company fare.

The fee was 50p, but only if you offered to pay nothing. I dont understand that aspect as if you're paying nothing, there should be no fee lol

the whole thing is really only applicable to bigger artists anyway imo. and it certainly would be fucking great to see lots of big acts follow suit, both for the fans and the message it'd send to the industry. would be chuffing brilliant.

but to the unsigned act, for me it does little to dispel the notion that you need major backing. everyone knows you can record music and release it by yourself over the internet, and thousands upon thousands of virtually unknown acts already do just that (including plenty on this site tbh). radiohead are in the position to do it so successfully precicsely because they've had big label backing in the past.

there are obviously great aspirational examples of self-made success stories (you can even include david fucking gray in that list), but radiohead especially in this context don't fit the bill. i can't really think of anyone who's demonstrated it's possible to completely sidestep the labels and go it alone. arctic monkeys maybe the closest thing?

thb the only thing an individual is lacking when compared to big labels is marketing money and strategy. no one cares about which label your album is on (apart from electronic music, but that's another thing altogether and much more innovating anyways than sonyemis will ever be) or if it has a label at all.

I was going to make a thread a few months back about how the invention of the CD has led to an increase in mediocre songs on albums where bands feel pressured to make 50+ minutes of music to try & fll the CD.
I've just made my 70's list & loads of records back then were 8 or 9 tracks. Some of my favourite bands like BRMC time and time again put out 12/13 track records which go on far too long with a few dud tracks & I always think if they'd just picked the best 9 songs out of the bunch they'd of made much better records.
Raveonettes newie is just 9 songs, hope it's the nuts.

;D cd is perfect for some genres obviously, but it's pretty difficult for an indie/rock record to be 12 tracks or more without having a couple of duffers.

and babs, you're right of course but you say "only" like money and marketing strategy are trivial things. evil and shit maybe, but definitely not trivial.

a lot of that is the fault of mongos who for some reason count the minute/euro ratio and are like "HELL NO I WANT 75 MINS OF MUSIC FOR MY MONEY"

it also seems like most movies these days are at least 2 hours long, wtf is up with that?

i never said they're trivial. correct marketing is the most important thing for a band or an artist. why else would kol be the biggest "rock" band on planet?

I agree with you with a record.

Though with the prices of going to the cinema nowadays I actually feel put off paying to see a film that only lasts 85 minutes. Not that I'd choose something I didn't want to see just because it was longer but if there is two films out I wouldn't mind seeing I'd probably go with the longer one to get more fuck for my buck.

yea it's all fine for a trip to cinema, but fuck watching something like avatar on a thursday night (not that i'd watch that turd again if it was only an hour long, but that's beside the point)

thought that's what you were getting at, apologies, my bad.

and yeah the long films thing is shit. 90 mins is still the perfect length for most films.

Depends entirely on the type of film.

yeah the godfather or something would be shit at 90 mins, but there's deffo been an upwards trend in the average length of the throwaway* blockbuster type films, seems like the average is now around 2 hours, which is too long for most films like that imo.

*throwaway not necessarily being a bad thing btw.

Video for 'Lotus Flower'