Links of Interest
22Oct07
A few items I found interesting:
The musical genius of Jens Lekman {slate.com} - I love his new album.
Helvetica DVD {uncrate.com} - Excellent documentary for those who take their fonts (too) seriously.
Even Free Can’t Compete With Music Piracy {techcrunch.com} - Discusses stats on piracy of Radiohead’s new album.
+ more...
in iTunes
I guess I take my fonts to seriously, because Id actully like to watch the documentary. $20 is a little steep though, ill definatly catch it next time I do netflix.
In regards to the radiohead album, It blows my mind how people can claim the in rainbows was unscuccesful, if its true they sold 1.2 million copies as claimed[1], at the average of $5 [2], thats $6 million straight to the artist. If we compare that to the one of the best selling cds in US ever [3] the Eagles’ “Their_Greatest_Hits_1971-1975″, which at 27 million copies sold. For a major label realease the artist gets about 23 cents per album sold at that rate, if we compare the numbers 0.23 x 27 = 6.2 million. How is that unsucessful? Also they managed to get the album out before it was leaked on the internet a very impressive feat in this day and age. Anyway enough ranting for me.
Thor
[1] http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/10/11/radiohead_sales/
[2] http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/10/early-radiohead.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Greatest_Hits_1971-1975
Thor, thanks for the excellent analysis. It’s crazy how the Radiohead story is everywhere. As I write this, the latest copy of Newsweek is lying next to me open to an article referencing Radiohead entitled, “How Much is Music Worth?”
I agree that some of the ideas in the TechCrunch post are short-sighted; I see this post as really more of a case-in-point for their previous, more interesting post, The Inevitable March of Recorded Music Towards Free. This was the first time I read about the 1.2 million downloads number so that’s the real reason I wanted to share it.
The piracy stats by no means undermine the brilliance and timeliness of Radiohead’s move. They effectively “leaked” the album themselves all the while getting an amazing amount of free publicity and making lots more money than if they stuck with a major label. They also succeeded in making the release day exciting. Coincidentally enough, the last exciting release day I remember was for Kid A.
I even heard about it on NPR the day it was announced: “labels are good at making a band famous. They are not good at paying artists.”
Some good thoughts from Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork:
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=2544
“Radiohead’s planned and publicized leak makes everyone gatekeepers and early adopters. They’re constructing an event — listening to their record is a global communal experience rather than an isolated one — and stripping away the rush to get to it first.”