Radiohead Erases Its Online Presence

Radiohead has always been groundbreaking when it comes to their online presence (the "pay what you want" campaign for In Rainbows being a prime example), but now it's entered some new territory by slowly but effectively erasing its entire online presence.

Yes, that's right. It's pretty hard to find any trace of Radiohead online right now.

There are no longer any Facebook posts or tweets on the band's accounts, and singer Thom Yorke has deleted his tweets as well. The band's Google Plus account is now blank too. And most bizarre is that its website has been slowly fading away as the opacity has decreased until it too went totally blank.

Then over the weekend, fans received postcards from the band via old fashioned snail mail that simply said, "Sing the song of sixpence that goes 'Burn the witch'."

There's speculation that there's a new Radiohead album about to be released since the band registered a new company called Dawn Chorus LLP in February. Previous to the the band's In Rainbows and The King of Limbs albums, the band also established companies in their names.

So there's a new album coming, and we can be pretty sure that won't be online, since the band has long shown it's contempt for streaming. It should be interesting to see exactly what the marketing play is this time.

Update: The band reappeared this morning with a couple of short animated clips on Instagram, then a new music video presumably from their new album on its website.

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Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Partners With The Enemy

Our digital music world is continually evolving and both artists and record labels are constantly forced to try something new in an effort to maximize revenue, as evidenced by the latest U2 album giveaway on iTunes. Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Radiohead, has a very high global profile and a track record of going against established industry business practices.

That’s why his latest BitTorrent Bundle solo release, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, is such an interesting test case. If it sells well (and it appears that way so far), many within the industry look to it as a model for what the album release of the future may look like.

Of course, BitTorrent has been widely known as a primary source of content piracy in the past, a reputation that the company hopes it can finally shrug with it’s Bundles format, which puts content owners firmly and securely in control.

A Bundle allows music artists, authors, and film makers to create a digital package that allows a combination of free and “gated” (paid) content. It’s actually a single downloadable file that can contain audio, text, graphic or video assets in any combination. Each Bundle can be unlocked via a payment, Facebook Like or Tweet or anything else the content owner chooses. 

Bundles were first introduced in May of 2013, and since then more than 120 million have been downloaded. There have only been a few high profile artists like Yorke though. Madonna released her Secretprojectrevolution movie on the platform as did Moby with his Innocents album. Of course, BitTorrent hopes that more high profile artists and groups will now consider Bundles as a distribution alternative on the heels of Yorke’s release. Read more on Forbes.

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Big Music Stars Have A New Label

You won't be seeing artists like Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Radiohead on the Parlophone label anymore as its acquisition by Warner Music Group has now been finalized. Parlophone was one of the world's oldest record labels, having been founded in 1896, but had been part of EMI since 1926. It was also the British home of The Beatles during their 1960's heyday.

Just to show you what an interesting ride it can be for an artist, EMI was purchased was purchased by Universal Music Group in 2012, but in order for the sale to go through, UMG was forced to divest Parlophone to appease European regulators. In February of 2013, Parlophone was then purchased by Warner Music Group, which then had to gain approval of both European and American regulators, hence the delay before they could release titles by Parlophone artists.

Now that the ride through the major label roller coaster is over, Warner Bros Records will distribute new releases from artists like Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, and Eliza Doolittle, and catalog titles by Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Blur, Gorillaz, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, Supergrass and Sinead O'Connor. Atlantic Records (a subsidiary of WMG) will distribute new releases from Coldplay, Tinie Tempah and David Guetta (although through his own imprint called Big Beat).

This story just goes to show that once an artist is signed to a label, he or she has little control over their fate down the line. If artists like Coldplay and Pink Floyd don't have the control over their own destinies, than what hope does an artist of lessor stature have? That said, the above artists do appear to be landing in a good place, as WMG is noted for having some great digital chops, and that's where the business is going.

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When Your Music Should Be Free

Recently there's been a bit of controversy stirred up by a Music Think Tank post by Taureen Casey over why indie musicians should charge for their music. I personally don't buy the arguments made in the article, but you can read it and decide for yourself. Here are my reasons why I think music sales shouldn't be a major concern for an indie artist.

1) There's a time and place to charge for your music. When you're just starting out, your music is worth nothing because no one knows who you are. If you charge for it, all you do is limit the number of people who might otherwise hear what you have to offer, thereby stunting your career growth. There may come a point in time where you can charge for it, but if you're in DIY mode then that time certainly isn't now.

2) Most people don't value music anymore. There's been study after study all over the world that all come to the conclusion that the biggest demo for music consumption (teens to about 30 years old) all feel that music should be free. How are you going to compete with that? Certainly not by trying to charge for something that people don't feel they should pay for. You can rail all you want about it being unfair (I agree, it is), but you're not going to change this perception by charging for your music.

3) In Music 3.0, the more you give away, the more you sell. It's an interesting phenomena, but time after time it holds true. The more you give it away digitally, the more you sell both physically and digitally. Artist after artist has found that as soon as they take the free tracks down from their website, their iTunes sales go down. In a related field, the recent "children's book" Go The F#&k To Sleep received tremendous pre-orders only after a pdf of the book went viral. I can't tell you what the psychology is behind this as I haven't seen a paper on it yet, but it definitely exists. Ignore it at your own peril.

4) Most music is priced wrong. $0.99 has become the de facto standard for a digital music single, and $10 seems to be what artists want to sell their CDs for, but these price points set up a psychological barrier to purchase. If music was priced better (as in cheaper), perhaps that psychological roadblock can be breached. Of course, we'd have to lower the transaction costs with a new micropayments system (see my earlier posts about this), but at least we'd reach a point where people might be willing to pay something.

By the way, Radiohead has shown everyone the way with their 2007 In Rainbows experiment where they asked their fans to pay what they wanted. It turns out that the average fan paid $6.84 and the band ended up making more money than they ever thought possible, far exceeding their recording costs. Then when the CD was released it immediately went triple platinum (sales of 3 million). I'd say that worked out pretty well.


5) The big money isn't in music anyway. Not directly, because from the beginning of modern music, 90+% of a major or minor recording artists income has come from touring and merchandise. The music is your marketing to get people to come and see you. If you're smart, you'll figure out some packages combined with your music to sell to your fans (you do have fans, right?), and you'll have a number of clever merch items with great graphics. That's where the real money is.

So remember, your music is your marketing. It's what makes everything else you do more valuable, but it's not the main product itself. The more it's out there, free or not, the better it is for an artist.

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The Economics Of Free

One of the guiding principles of the new economy of Music 3.0 is what's known as "the economics of free." This means that, contrary to what you might think, the more you give away, the more you sell. The concept was perfectly illustrated by Radiohead's In Rainbows album a few years ago, where the band let their fans determine the price.

Here's an excerpt from the Music 3.0 Internet Music guidebook that describes it in detail.
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By allowing the customer to set the price, Radiohead exercised a new business theory called “The Economics of Free” (or EoF).  In M30, EoF encourages content owners to give some of their products away for free because, if done correctly, you can increase your market size greatly, as seen in the case of In Rainbows. Both Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys are rumored to have unofficially leaked their initial releases for just the same reason, with great results.

You can’t just start giving away your precious content without thought though. It has to be the center of a larger marketing plan.  In terms of M30, an EoF campaign means the following:

You, the artist, have two types of products: infinite products and scarce products. Infinite products would be your music, especially in digital form. Physical products like CDs don’t fit in here because it actually costs you money to produce them (the CDs, not the music on them). Digital music is easy to copy and steal, and just as easy to give away.

Your scarce products are tickets to live shows, access to musicians, signed merchandise, backstage passes, private concerts, custom CDs, CD box sets, time spent with you, writing a song for a fan willing to pay for it, and anything else that has a limited supply.

So to take advantage of the Economics of Free, the artist would:

1. Set the infinite products (or just some of them) free. Put it on your website, Facebook, Youtube and anywhere you can. The more you get it out there, the great publicity and wider the visibility.  This makes the scarce products more valuable.

2. Because of the free infinite products, you can now charge more for the scarce products. Before #1 is implemented, access to the artist or backstage passes might not be worth anything, but now they are. Before #1, maybe no one wanted your CDs, but now they’re valuable as a collectors item as are the box sets. 

Setting the infinite products free (your music) expands your tribe. As your tribe expands, the demand for your scarce products grow. In Music 3.0, an artist that sticks to the ways of Music 1.0 through 2.5 will be relegated to a small audience forever.

You can read additional excerpts from Music 3.0 at bobbyowsinski.com.

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Check out my Big Picture blog for daily discussion of music, recording, and production tips and tricks.

The "Pay What You Can" Music Label

I always thought that Radiohead had the best idea when they asked their fans to pay whatever they wanted for their 2007 online release of In Rainbows. By all reports, In Rainbows ended up being far more successful than the band ever believed it could be, and didn't dent their traditional CD sales one bit when they released it about six months later.

This, I believe, is a great model for an artist or band just starting out. Ask your fans to pay whatever they want for online downloads. Ask them to pay whatever they want for CDs at your gig. They might surprise you with how generous they are, and even if they don't pay anything, it still means there's more of your product out in the marketplace. Remember, your music is your marketing in Music 3.0!

That being said, a new music label out of Detroit has popped up called BeeHive Recording, where people can pay whatever they want for the releases of artists on their roster. While this might work for an individual artist or band, I'm not quite sure how viable it is for a record label. Still, you have to hand it to them for at least trying something different.

Here's a video about what they're doing. I don't know where Steven of BeeHive gets his figures about what an artist gets paid from a traditional record contract, because they're just flat-out wrong (way too low). Even so, let that part of it go and listen to the rest.

The site has 600 site members and between 3,500 and 4,000 downloads have occurred so far.


Beehive Recording Company from Alec on Vimeo.

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Radiohead And The Quest For Higher Quality Audio

Radiohead's last release, In Rainbows, was a watershed moment in Music 3.0 in that they asked their fans to pay whatever amount they wanted, and were rewarded with more sales for more money than they ever anticipated.

This time around for their new album The King Of Limbs, the band is taking a different approach, this time charging a fixed price, but with a twist.

1) There are two distinct products - a digital only product, and what they call the world's first "Newspaper Album," which consists of two clear vinyl records, a CD, large and small pieces of artwork, plus the digital downloads.

2) The digital downloads only are available in two flavors - MP3 for $9 and WAV for $14. The digital portion of Newspaper Album also dictates the price, with the MP3 price set at $48 and the WAV price at $53.

It will be very interesting to see just what portion of the buying public opts for the higher resolution product. Hopefully, their fans will surprise us all and go for the quality, but don't hold your breath. Whatever the result, Radiohead is once again on the cutting edge of Music 3.0.

Visit the Radiohead King Of Limbs site for more information.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

5 Aspects Of The New Music Reality

During lunch with a friend today, he passed some scenarios by me for breaking a new act. One of the things he said seems to be what's now seems to be accepted industry knowledge, although I believe the logic is faulty.

"We're going to do vinyl and digital downloads but skip the CD. They're done." After discussing for a while what he was going to charge for the items, I told him my feelings on the matter.

1) Hoping to make money on any kind of music isn't living in reality, especially for a new artist that no one knows. That business model is dead and gone, even for all but the 1% (or less) of established artists.

2) Give your music away. That's what it's worth to most consumers - zero, nada - especially if they're not your fans. Music always has been a promotional tool for the artist, and the record label made most of the money anyway. Once you get over the idea that you can make money from the sale of your music, your mind will be free for other possibilities that can be monetized.

3) CD's aren't dead. They're a collectible, the same as a shirt or hat. The fact is that they're not the be all, end all to monetizing your brand the same we they used to be for because we've entered into the Music 3.0 era. It requires new thinking about what everything about an artist is worth.

4) But you can charge for a collectible. A collectible is a memento of a moment in time, and people will pay to relive that through an item that they'll buy. But you can't charge too much, especially in these troubled financial times.

One of the problems with most bands and artists is that they price their swag way too high. Who pays $10 dollars for a CD these days? Who's willing to pay $20 for a T-shirt? Even legacy artists with a really great brand and nicely designed merch have a problem at $35, which has become the norm at a concert.

Find out your costs, including tax, shipping, the commission you give to the swag salesman, and everything else that might be hidden, and mark it up by 20% - 25% at most. Especially if you're just starting out, think of these items as promotional. The fact that you might get someone to cover your costs and even make a little is a bonus. You can charge more later once you develop a rabid following that wants everything ever connected to you.

For CD's, either pull a Radiohead and let people pay what they want for them, or give them away. Once again, it's promotion. I'd rather people pay at least something because that way they've made a commitment to listening to it. A CD given away for free will most likely hit the garbage before it ever hits their ears.

As far as digital downloads, give them away for free on your website, and charge for them on iTunes, Amazon and all of the streaming networks too. Study after study has found that downloads sell better when they're available for free, as weird as that sounds.

5) Don't buy inventory. The days of order 500 or 1000 of anything are over. Get just enough to have a few on hand (like 10 or so), and order anything else on a as-needed basis. For CDs, you can order from 1 to 100,000 for a fixed fee of $1.75 from Kunaki.com. For all other merch, you can do the same at Zazzle.com or Cafepress.com.


We're living in the age of Music 3.0. It's time to take advantage of it.

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Headed For Only 3 Majors

With EMI in a death spiral due to a huge debt burden that it can't possibly pay, it looks like the 4 major labels (dubbed "The 4 Ugly Sisters" by former EMI exec Rupert Perry) will soon be 3.

If you think that the other majors are right behind EMI though, think again. Sony Music just had a great sales year thanks to Michael Jackson's untimely demise and ultimate huge boost in sales. Warner Records, for all the predicted doom and gloom (including from yours truly), is actually gaining market share and their stock price is rising, and Universal Music Group is still the king of the music world in terms of sales and ancillary income streams.

The venerable EMI was a special case among the majors in the last couple of years. Private equity investment group Terra Firma bit off more than they could financially chew at the peak of the market, thinking that if nothing else, EMI's enormous catalog would see them through. With the stock market tanking last year, major talent like Paul McCartney and Radiohead leaving in droves, and with the label's decimated staff not capable of bringing in new acts with hits, this once great and well-run label became a shell of its former self.

At this point, it looks like a long shot that EMI will survive as a label, although its enormous catalog is worth a lot of money (just not enough to allow it to prosper). Still, sometime in the near future, the major label ranks will shrink to 3.