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Tuesday, October 16, 2007
In Rainbows
Oh, those crazy Radiohead people. I thought I was behind the times when I read a fews weeks ago about Radiohead releasing a new album, but it turns out that is was actually the first time they had announced it - only 10 days before it would come out. And only (initially) as a digital download. And for any price you wanted.
The screen where you do this is just kind of - neat. After you add the album to your "cart" (what else can you put in this cart? there's no other things for sale on the website, as far as I can tell) you then fill in a little field with the price you'll pay. Importantly, I think, you have to actually enter an amount - even if it is $0. There's a little ? beside the price which tells you "it's up to you". If you click the ? beside that, it tells you "no really, it's up to you", with a link back to the cart.
It does exactly what one of the band members said - makes you think about what music is worth to you, in the context of everything else. As I said above, I think it's important that you actually have to enter an amount. It forces you to actually sit down and type out what you think the music is worth, before proceeding. It's interesting because it goes with the way the world has become - all media being instantly available at the click of a button - instead of fighting it. It made me think of how I spent the previous night - watching two full episodes of The Office on youtube. In the future, will we all compensate artists for their work as much or as little as we wish?
I love what they've done, if for no other reason than it brought a smile to my face. The band members seemed so happy just to be trying something different, an experiment - just to see what would happen, and to make people think. How cool is that?
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As for the album itself, before buying it from their website, I listened to a few songs on youtube last night. My initial reaction was huge disappointment - I really didn't think it sounded that good at all. But I decided to get the album anyways, and having listened all the way through three or four times, I'm really, really starting to like it. It has an intangible quality that makes it sound a bit different than their past records - I can't quite put my finger on it. But the more I listen, the more I like it.
Oh, those crazy Radiohead people. I thought I was behind the times when I read a fews weeks ago about Radiohead releasing a new album, but it turns out that is was actually the first time they had announced it - only 10 days before it would come out. And only (initially) as a digital download. And for any price you wanted.
The screen where you do this is just kind of - neat. After you add the album to your "cart" (what else can you put in this cart? there's no other things for sale on the website, as far as I can tell) you then fill in a little field with the price you'll pay. Importantly, I think, you have to actually enter an amount - even if it is $0. There's a little ? beside the price which tells you "it's up to you". If you click the ? beside that, it tells you "no really, it's up to you", with a link back to the cart.
It does exactly what one of the band members said - makes you think about what music is worth to you, in the context of everything else. As I said above, I think it's important that you actually have to enter an amount. It forces you to actually sit down and type out what you think the music is worth, before proceeding. It's interesting because it goes with the way the world has become - all media being instantly available at the click of a button - instead of fighting it. It made me think of how I spent the previous night - watching two full episodes of The Office on youtube. In the future, will we all compensate artists for their work as much or as little as we wish?
I love what they've done, if for no other reason than it brought a smile to my face. The band members seemed so happy just to be trying something different, an experiment - just to see what would happen, and to make people think. How cool is that?
----------------------------
As for the album itself, before buying it from their website, I listened to a few songs on youtube last night. My initial reaction was huge disappointment - I really didn't think it sounded that good at all. But I decided to get the album anyways, and having listened all the way through three or four times, I'm really, really starting to like it. It has an intangible quality that makes it sound a bit different than their past records - I can't quite put my finger on it. But the more I listen, the more I like it.