Cultuere
(c) Bedford/St. Martin's bedfordstmartins.com 1-457-62096-0 / 978-1-457-62096-6
SOUNDS AND IMAGES
Sound Recording and Popular
Music
73
The Development of Sound Recording
81
U.S. Popular Music and the Formation of Rock
88
A Changing Industry:
Reformations in
Popular Music
95
The Business of
Sound Recording
103
Sound Recording,
Free Expression, and Democracy
For years, the recording industry has been panicking about file swappers who illegally download songs and thereby decrease recorded music sales. So it struck many in the industry as unusual when the Grammy Award–winning British alternative rock group Radiohead decided to sell its 2007 album In Rainbows on the Internet
(www.inrainbows.com) for whatever price fans wished to pay, including nothing at all.
Radiohead was able to try this business model because its contract with the record corporation
EMI had expired after its previous album, 2003’s
Hail to the Thief. Knowing it had millions of fans around the world, the group turned down multimillion-dollar offers to sign a new contract with major labels, and instead decided to experiment by offering its seventh studio album online with a
“pay what you wish” approach. “It’s not supposed to be a model for anything else. It was simply a response to a situation,” Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, said. “We’re out of contract. We have our own studio. We have this new server. What the hell else would we do? This was the obvious thing.
But it only works for us because of where we are.”1
CHAPTER 3 ○ SOUND RECORDING
(c) Bedford/St. Martin's bedfordstmartins.com 1-457-62096-0 / 978-1-457-62096-6
71
SOUND RECORDING AND POPULAR MUSIC
Radiohead didn’t disclose the sales revenue or numbers of the downloads, but one source claimed at least 1.2 million copies of the album were downloaded in the first two days.2 In an interview with an Australian newspaper, Yorke mentioned that about 50 percent of the
SOUNDS AND IMAGES
Sound Recording and Popular
Music
73
The Development of Sound Recording
81
U.S. Popular Music and the Formation of Rock
88
A Changing Industry:
Reformations in
Popular Music
95
The Business of
Sound Recording
103
Sound Recording,
Free Expression, and Democracy
For years, the recording industry has been panicking about file swappers who illegally download songs and thereby decrease recorded music sales. So it struck many in the industry as unusual when the Grammy Award–winning British alternative rock group Radiohead decided to sell its 2007 album In Rainbows on the Internet
(www.inrainbows.com) for whatever price fans wished to pay, including nothing at all.
Radiohead was able to try this business model because its contract with the record corporation
EMI had expired after its previous album, 2003’s
Hail to the Thief. Knowing it had millions of fans around the world, the group turned down multimillion-dollar offers to sign a new contract with major labels, and instead decided to experiment by offering its seventh studio album online with a
“pay what you wish” approach. “It’s not supposed to be a model for anything else. It was simply a response to a situation,” Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, said. “We’re out of contract. We have our own studio. We have this new server. What the hell else would we do? This was the obvious thing.
But it only works for us because of where we are.”1
CHAPTER 3 ○ SOUND RECORDING
(c) Bedford/St. Martin's bedfordstmartins.com 1-457-62096-0 / 978-1-457-62096-6
71
SOUND RECORDING AND POPULAR MUSIC
Radiohead didn’t disclose the sales revenue or numbers of the downloads, but one source claimed at least 1.2 million copies of the album were downloaded in the first two days.2 In an interview with an Australian newspaper, Yorke mentioned that about 50 percent of the