Accessorize with Care

The national media and some (maybe most) conservatives are "angry" at Barack Obama because he said that he was no longer going to wear an American flag lapel pin, which obviously makes him unpatriotic. I mean let's be honest here. If you can't even bring yourself to wear a pro-USA accessory on your chest then how can I trust that you'll do patriotic things like leak intelligence information to the press?

Radiohead

At long last Radiohead have announced on their website Dead Air Space that their 7th LP, In Rainbows, is finally coming out! Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about this.

As of right now the album is only available at InRainbows.com (which you can also get to by typing in Radiohead.com). Your pre-ordered download will be available on October 10. How much does this new Radiohead album cost, you ask? It's completely up to you. With the exception of the addition £0.45 debit/credit card fee you can choose the price that you pay for the download. And yes, you can choose £0.01 if you'd like. If you want more than just a download they also offer a Discbox which includes 2 CDs, photos, artwork, lyric booklets and the record on vinyl for £40, which is about $80.

I didn't mean to just write out an advert, but I'm excited and don't want those of you who care to miss out as I'm not sure how long this deal will last. Will they continue to sell like this and totally bypass the traditional brick-and-mortar distribution system or is this just a warm-up before they license the album to a major? If it's the former (which I hope and suspect it is) it'd be quite a revolutionary thing for a band of their stature, or any band for that matter, to do. A big "fuck you" to the major labels and the current dying system. They don't need distribution, they've got the internet. And they sure as hell don't need iTunes when they can send all of their fans to one location, regardless of their location, to download the record via their company W.A.S.T.E.

It's brilliant really. Set your own price!? They understand that music is a thing of value that should be paid for, but they don't want to shove it down people's throats. They have a large enough rabidly loyal fan-base to know that the people interested in a new Radiohead album are willing to pay for it and that most of them are willing to pay what they see to be a reasonable price. For every person who bought the album for £0.46 they're probably 20 who bought it for at least £5 and likely more than that.

There's a lot of talk in this industry about "nurturing your fans," and a lot can be learned from this situation. It's truly revolutionary; and though most artists can't go to this extreme and assuredly recoup their expenses like it is doubtless Radiohead will, we can learn that empowering your fans breeds loyalty and that a little credibility goes a long way.