As we reported on Monday, Radiohead is releasing their new record, In Rainbows, on their own next week. And like all things Radiohead, this interesting development has gotten blown out of proportion, with the musical blogosphere awash with pronouncements of an impending Earth-shattering paradigm shift. OK. Let’s review: A hugely successful band with millions of fans decides to forgo traditional distribution routes and release their highly anticipated album via their own website. Cool. But, where's the risk in that? It may be a novel concept but not very much in the way of being groundbreaking, since the latter requires at least some form of peril. And if you're Radiohead there's very little threat of that.
This is the thing that we don't understand: people harping about how the digital domain will make record companies as we know them obsolete. And how the internet is the great equalizer. If the former is in regard to labels disappearing because people would rather download for free than pay for music then, sure, they'll disappear. As for the latter, what many don't understand is that, being an unknown artist and having your music online without any promotional push is like back in the day having your CD in every single Tower Records, but no one knew it was there. Will well-intentioned blogs pick up the PR slack? What if these gatekeepers don't like your music for whatever reason? And God forbid you have musical talent but limited technical aptitude, otherwise you better find some way to pay for that recording engineer.
The DIY artists which many refer to as the great examples of the digital revolution’s impending supremacy, are further proof of our position. These are, mostly, artists whose former major label liaisons may not want anything to do with them. But they’re betting that if a small fraction of the millions or hundreds of thousands that bought their records are still interested in what they have to offer, they can DIY and make the kind of money they probably never saw with Sony, etc. How can an unknown compete with what marketing people refer to as a "brand"?
We applaud Radiohead on this way of doing business. Surely many will be paying close attention to it. Most especially the labels who want to eventually circumvent the likes of iTunes and have, for instance, the Universal website as the exclusive source for all Motown. (Warner Bros is supposedly doing it with their out of print music at this point.) Brave new world, indeed.
