Rich Trenholm

Rich Trenholm writes about digital cameras and other technology, except when he's writing about films, music and comics. He does not drink tea and never has.

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Thursday 4 October 2007, 4:41pm

Radiohead re-invent capitalism: Nice dream

Radiohead are to sell their latest album, In Rainbows, for as much as you're willing to pay for it. Reader's voice: "They'll have to give me money to listen to it!" Chortle.

I love Radiohead. Even the crazy later stuff. Kid A is my favourite of their albums -- yeah, I said it. Actually, what am I talking about? I'm going to buy The Bends this lunchtime and listen to it all afternoon. Really, really loud.

But I digress. In Rainbows will cost as many dollars and cents as you're willing to part with. New model of capitalism or anti-piracy pragmatism? A bit of both, most probably, and let's face it, this is an economic and social experiment undertaken from the ivory tower of multimillionaire rock stardom. So I'm not expecting the next Snuff album to be sold this way. But hey, champagne socialism is still socialism (why do Marxists only drink herbal tea? Because all proper tea is theft).

I'm not expecting Britney's next album to be sold this way either. Which is a shame. Give me the option of paying what I want, and I might actually buy a Britney album alongside Radiohead. This cuts to the heart of the downloading issue: I hold my hands up to a fair bit of Limewire use, but my justification is that I only downloaded stuff I would never have bought. Given the option, I would happily pay a fiver for any album (even if I decide it's pony and delete it later) as I firmly believe that every band has one great song. I'm hoping that In Rainbows has several. And how much am I going to pay?

50 pence -- I'm not stupid! Just kidding.

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Comments on this post

I don't bother with downloaded music because i prefer the audio quality of the original cd and the look of a cd rack. However in all seriousness if you can play 1pence or £10 for anything be it a album or a beer what are you going to pay, 1pence of course.

Posted by Stephen on Fri 5 October, 2007 8:30 AM

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I see your point, Stephen, and it certainly is tempting. If this was a big record label doing this then I'd be happy to get one over on 'the man'. But in this case the money is mainly going (as far as I'm aware) to the artists themselves, which is the way these things should be. As such, I'd happily part with a few quid just as I'd happily part with one or two quid for a beer. This whole experiment is about people paying what they think the music is worth, not what they think they can get away with, and, if it's not overstating things, this may just be a blueprint for a finer world. Or maybe I'm just being over-(in the words of Radiohead themselves) "optimistic".

Posted by Rich on Mon 8 October, 2007 11:46 AM

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