Radiohead's New album details

According to Radiohead there will be a hard copy release of In Rainbows in the new year. Of course, you could opt for the 0.01p donwload route to listen to the album and then purchase the cd version in '08. Not sure if this CD version will contain the extra material featured on the bonus CD that comes with Discbox but I doubt it.
Personally I went straight for the discbox cause I'm sad and want the vinyl version. 
Quick update on sales. According to Gigwise.com, unofficial figures are suggesting there have been 1.2 million downloads of In Rainbows. Another report suggested the average price paid was £4.99, which means each member of the band will trouser £1.2 million each. Nice work if you can get it. No figures on sales of the discbox yet.
I don't begrudge them a penny. On a record company CD sale a well-paid band will get an 8% royalty, so at an average price of say £12 the artists gets 96p for each CD sold. Multiply that by 1.2 million and you get £1,152,000 split between five band member or £230,000 each. The average record company - if involved - would do zero work except manufacturing (at about 50p per CD)  packaging and promotion (which in Radiohead's case you don't really need) and get £14.5 million gross as opposed to £230,000 for each band member (who did four years' work on the project - about 60k a year!).
Record labels are robber barons of the worst kind.
Support your local artist and pay a decent fee for the download. Yes, the 160kbps rate should probably have been increased to at least 240kbps but pay something reasonable for the chance to audition and then if you like it buy the CD in the new year.



Edited by arcer - October 12 2007 at 06:55

It's pretty good. Not better than the best, but better than Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief--and I can definitely see it growing on. A lot. It's very good; lots of orchestra, which is cool.

Sounds fine, by the way...I'm listening on headphones. Nothing detracting, just because it's not a FLAC file. Who cares?

It's good. Get it :)

The-Bullet wrote: Reading various news sites and forums it seems that most people are happy with what Radiohead are doing here in making their music "basically" download only, at least for now. What's more, it seems that this will be the future. Whilst this may be good or even great for the musicians with them getting a bigger cut and more control etc, I fail to see how listeners can be happy having to listen to music sampled at 160kbs or less.This may be ok for the ipod generation but it is not ok for me . A visit to the ranting room may be in order

Edited by Slartibartfast - October 10 2007 at 13:52

eddietrooper wrote: I just downloaded In Rainbows. I paid 2 £ (let´s see if I buy the box later). The download was very quick and it works. It's 160 kbps but it seems to sound rather good on my Creative Zen. It's DRM-free. When I finish listening to it I'll write my impressions about it. It doesn't look bad.

Edited by Slartibartfast - October 10 2007 at 10:21

good production doesn't matter... there's still data missing... that I paid for.

WTF is this?????

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING IN RAINBOWS. THIS IS AN UPDATE.

YOUR UNIQUE ACTIVATION CODE(S) WILL BE SENT OUT TOMORROW MORNING (UK TIME). THIS WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO THE DOWNLOAD AREA.

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD:

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

MOST COMPUTERS NOW HAVE ZIP SOFTWARE AS PART OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM; IF YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOT, YOU NEED TO GET WINZIP OR ZIPIT INSTALLED PRIOR.

160 kbps?

I figured they would offer at least 320 kbps or a FLAC download, not 160 kbps.  It's going to sound like crap in a can! 

I have listened to some live versions of most of the songs off the Rolling Stones website (just type in "radiohead in rainbows preview").  It seems a lot more beat oriented and there is one song that is more abusive than Myxamitosis.  I am eagerly awaiting next Wednesday.

The whole bandwith thing worries a little.  I want to get it ASAP, but in case things go haywire, maybe it's just better to wait a day or two...

debrewguy wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: GoldenSpiral wrote: wow, we must have posted threads at nearly the same time.  Or maybe I didn't see this one.    anyhow...   Slartibartfast, how is this fan abuse?  You can download the album entirely for free if you want to.  You can pay for the download voluntarily, as much as you like, or you can spend the extra cash for the disc box.   sounds like a hell of an idea to me.  Download for cheap, and if it's as good as some of their other work, I'll get the whole shebang.   This looks like a brave new model for the music industry!   I'll certainly take advantage of the free download, but that price for a hard copy is rather steep.    To elaborate on the Steven Wilson fan abuse, I advanced ordered a special version of Deadwing that was supposed to have a DVD.  The CD turned up in stores before my special version arrived, so of course I had to go for immediate gratification and buy a copy from the local store.  When the special version arrived it turned out to be an audio DVD.  Then a few months later another DVD audio version was released that had three bonus track, which I had to get.  Arrrgh!   So now there's a bonus CD available for Fear of a Blank Planet, which I also had to order and I suppose sooner or later the bonus and main CD will be available as a single package.  Better not put any additonal tracks on that.  Arrrgh arrgh! Not that I minded at the time, but when Gentle Giant released their first DVD (Giant on the Box), it was listed as $45CAD (plus taxes). No mention of it being a special, limited or deluxe edtion. It was composed of the DvD & a "bonus" live cd. Two months after I buy it, they come out with the DVD only version ... for $25. I have yet to play the CD right thru, as the first track was not of impeccable sound quality, so why bother listening to below par recordings, no matter how highly I esteem GG. Oh, for all the whining about the discbox, those who just want  the album itself are able to do so at a price of their choosing. But the price of the discbox seems more than reasonable for the contents, if you're a fan anyways.

That's kind of funny, I bought the regular version first, then I ordered the deluxe edition thinking it was something different.  Hard to get mad because hey, it's Gentle Giant live on DVD!  Plus if I had looked at it closer before ordering I might have known better.

ProgBagel wrote: This seems nice and everything...but they have the money to do it. There is not many bands that have the choice in doing this.

You don't need so many money.
You just have to arrange a good web site and a warehouse to dispatch the CDs.