New Radiohead Album Out In 10 Days!!!!!!

[alex]

Must be happening, it's on the Beeb...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7021743.stm

 

[joe501]

It is real.
This is so amazing. Nobody announces an album 10 days before release. Nobody was expecting this for at least another 6 months.
Trust me this album will be fantastic I have heard many of these songs live.

Radiohead are effectively leaking the album themselves. You can buy it on CD in 2008.
The downloads will probably not count as sales and they will not get into the charts... but that is not why Radiohead exist.

Yes they are pretentious. But what a great gesture, they dont need a record label, they dont want a record label. So they are releasing it themselves instead of making the fans wait for the label to hype everything up.

I have already ordered the boxset - I would have paid £40 for the album anyway but this has another CD with more songs!

Counting down the hours until October 10th!

 

[Hazzman]

Radiohead for the last 5 or so years I have always preached that downloadble music without a charge is the way forward. Well Done for finally putting the money where their mouth is.

 

[Jeff]

Radiohead for the last 5 or so years I have always preached that downloadble music without a charge is the way forward. Well Done for finally putting the money where their mouth is.

Maybe bands making loads of money from radio play and concerts can afford to do that, but smaller bands won't be able to give away music for free, it could mean a lot of potentially good bands will never get the chance to make it.

 

[highland fox]

Maybe bands making loads of money from radio play and concerts can afford to do that, but smaller bands won't be able to give away music for free, it could mean a lot of potentially good bands will never get the chance to make it.

But they don't now

 

[Hazzman]

Maybe bands making loads of money from radio play and concerts can afford to do that, but smaller bands won't be able to give away music for free, it could mean a lot of potentially good bands will never get the chance to make it.

Really?

So how did the likes of Arctic Monkeys become famous? Free downloads off the net.......

In some ways, it's a similar process Radiohead release a record for free and available to download and then released a CD five/six months down the line.

Radiohead are an extreme exception from the normal band - there is no need for them to market themselves. They can experiment, they can choose record deals and suggested gigs. I can't see any other band doing this.

 

[Melton Fox]

Really?

So how did the likes of Arctic Monkeys become famous? Through free demos off the net.

In every line of sales, you must give away free samples to get your foot in the door. Once you become established then you can't afford to give your product away.

 

[Hazzman]

In every line of sales, you must give away free samples to get your foot in the door. Once you become established then you can't afford to give your product away.

That I understand but Jeff mentioned 'smaller bands' which could be assumed in different ways in terms of a band's status. From the very beginning or a band who have yet broken the mainstream despite having some fanbase.

Radiohead are in a completely unique position of being in the upper tier of modern music. The masses will buy their music, the leftside will buy their music, they have a universal appeal. No real need to market themselves.

The likes of Oasis etc. would could claim to have a massive fanbase still rely on a marketing machine to get people to buy their records.

 

[Melton Fox]

That I understand but Jeff mentioned 'smaller bands' which could be assumed in different ways in terms of a band's status. From the very beginning or a band who have yet broken the mainstream despite having some fanbase.

Years ago, back in the olden days, new bands used to play in pubs and clubs for free, or sometimes even pay to perform.

Nowadays bands are too lazy to do this and record stuff at home and post it on the internet like the Arctic Monkeys did.

They get no respect for me for this.

Giving away your demos and playing for free has always been what new bands do, please don't suggest the Arctic Monkeys have done anything different other than find an easier route to market.

 

[Jeff]

But they don't now

Even less will if they can't afford to give up their jobs.

A band with mainstream success will make money from all sorts of stuff, not just record sales. More obscure bands will rely on gigging and record sales, and if you take away a big source of their revenue they may never be able to afford to give up their day jobs and end up giving up.

 

[Jeff]

Nowadays bands are too lazy to do this and record stuff at home and post it on the internet like the Arctic Monkeys did.

They claim they didn't even do that, they say it was their fans who set up their myspace page, and the band didn't have a clue what it was all about. Dunno whether to believe that though.

 

[Hazzman]

Years ago, back in the olden days, new bands used to play in pubs and clubs for free, or sometimes even pay to perform.

Nowadays bands are too lazy to do this and record stuff at home and post it on the internet like the Arctic Monkeys did.

They get no respect for me for this.

Giving away your demos and playing for free has always been what new bands do, please don't suggest the Arctic Monkeys have done anything different other than find an easier route to market.

I am not suggesting that Arctic Monkeys or many other bands have done anything 'new'. In terms of using the internet as a media for it distributed was new. That's what Radiohead are using in this case hence the reason I used that example.

The very earlier likes of Arctic Monkeys and others whose music ended up on the net wasn't the work of the band. They recorded demos in studio, paying for studio time etc. and then gave them out at gigs. Then fans of the bands began to place the music on the net. So it was never any work of their own in the earlier years of the boom. Many continue to make this simplistic connection but it wasn't true to start off with. They put the same hard work but were fast tracked to success on a new medium.

However since then marketing people have used this as a tactic to get music out the same way for many smaller bands with a record deal but I suppose this haze is often what clouds people judgement when comes to pre-assumption of the new musical upstarts.

Never the less, the good will always be seperated from the bad or it will be according to the mainstream's current tastes. Radiohead know they are in the position to abuse the music industry what got them there in the first place as along they appear front faced and practice what they preach they gain major respect from me. Not like that money-grabbing **** from U2 who wants people to donate millions of pounds to a charity when he's sitting on prospective near-billions.

 

[Hazzman]

They claim they didn't even do that, they say it was their fans who set up their myspace page, and the band didn't have a clue what it was all about. Dunno whether to believe that though.

I understand that their demos were not even placed on a myspace to start with - a web hosting site contained them. Before the release of the first album, they 'bought'/negotiated a deal with the host to take over that space.

I like/honestly believe that they are true to their word - they record for an indie label for starters which means they aren't spolit by A and R men.

 

[Melton Fox]

I understand that their demos were not even placed on a myspace to start with - a web hosting site contained them. Before the release of the first album, they 'bought'/negotiated a deal with the host to take over that space.

I like/honestly believe that they are true to their word - they record for an indie label for starters which means they aren't spolit by A and R men.

Are they still giving their stuff away free?

 

[Hazzman]

Are they still giving their stuff away free?

Of course not. Well the band aren't or the label but if you looked 15 minutes on various forums you'd find links posted from so called fans.

For example, last week I heard an awful recorded version of 'Nettles', a song rumoured to be on a new EP.

 

[Melton Fox]

Of course not

Why not

 

[Hazzman]

Why not

Quite obivious because they are not in a position yet to abuse the music industry. My respect to Radiohead is for practicing what they preach. Whether it will aid or knock back in the music industry, I honestly don't know but after the first boom in internet music distribution, this appears to be a second step, the real forebarer to whether it will be for the good of music is when a smaller band take the chance of releasing an album online without paying. But I can't see that happening for a while, Radiohead know that their hardcore will buy the boxset for 40 quid anyways. It's a surefire money maker.

Back to Arctic Monkeys. They need the industry as much as industry needs them. Well the 'independant' labels need them as much as Arctic Monkeys need them to maintain their name as one of the bands with an inch of creditability to them. To still make they need that buzz/vibe around them - they have a universal appeal currently.

Really my opinion agrees with Jeff's but I just questioned his assessment that smaller bands will suffer.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

I think Hazza's point is (though i may have got it wrong) is that this will not catch on and stop smaller bands breaking through (Jeff's point) because Radiohead is the only act in the world today that can pull this off. They are the only band who will still make a lot of money from this, simply because they are the only band that are big with the music buffs or whatever, who will actually buy the discset and/or donate for the record, and get mainstream radio play (therefore meaning they have enough money to do this in case it falls through)

Even though bands like Coldplay, Oasis & U2 are bigger, if they did a similar thing people would just get the download for free without donating, because (without trying to stereotype anyone here) their fans are mostly nearly all the mass market i.e people who just want the music and don't care about owning the actual record or helping the acts out by paying them.

Radiohead already proved this with Kid A, when they gave it no press and no singles to the radio, but it still topped the album charts in the UK and US and sold millions of records...

 

[Melton Fox]

Back to Arctic Monkeys. They need the industry as much as industry needs them.

Really my opinion agrees with Jeff's but I just questioned his assessment that smaller bands will suffer.

There you go, you answered your own question in this very post.

So, once upon a time Radiohead were like the Arctic Monkeys and needed the industry as much as it needed them. Is it fair to then turn around and shit on that industry.

Just for the record though, I don't think the music industry does need the Arctic Monkeys as you point out. I'd also go so far as saying Radiohead wouldn't have been missed if they hadn't made it.

 

[Profondo Rosso]

There you go, you answered your own question in this very post.

So, once upon a time Radiohead were like the Arctic Monkeys and needed the industry as much as it needed them. Is it fair to then turn around and shit on that industry.

Just for the record though, I don't think the music industry does need the Arctic Monkeys as you point out. I'd also go so far as saying Radiohead wouldn't have been missed if they hadn't made it.

Of course it is, the music industry may have got them famous, but it's a bit of a joke, all it cares about is making money rather than actually making good music. Anyone has the right to shit on it. :icon_wink It's the same with Hollywood...