Music Business and Trend-Mongering

Radiohead Rocking The Online Marketing Campaign (And You Could Too!)

Following up on the DJ set that Thom Yorke did on Thursday evening, radiohead.tv hosted a second straight night of live performances, videos and cover songs in what is appearing to be some sort of Webcast series. Excellent stuff – a homemade video for the new 15 Steps song using images from the Brad Pitt film Se7en (with Thom’s head playing the role of Gweneth Paltrow), a great Smiths cover, and a red hot live version of Bodysnatchers, the second song from the “In Rainbows” record.

Radiohead is, of course, in a unique position as one of the biggest bands in the world, and they are going to be getting a ton of publicity no matter what they do. But what’s interesting to me is how fun this all is, and the fact that any band can pull off essentially the same thing. The Se7en clip looks like it took someone about 25 minutes to make using iMovie!

Check out Thom’s DJ set from Nov 8th here:

Bodysnatchers clip from last night’s Webcast is here:

Se7en/15 Steps video:

Smiths Headmaster Ritual live cover:

I got this email first thing today:

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING ‘IN RAINBOWS’.

THE LINK BELOW IS YOUR UNIQUE DOWNLOAD ACTIVATION CODE.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK OR CUT AND PASTE INTO YOUR BROWSER TO OBTAIN YOUR DOWNLOAD.
IF YOUR LINK APPEARS AS TWO SEPARATE LINES, PLEASE CUT AND PASTE THEM CAREFULLY INTO YOUR BROWSER.

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS DOWNLOADING YOUR FILE, PLEASE CONTACT OUR DOWNLOAD CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM: downloadinrainbows@waste.uk.com

WE HOPE YOU ENJOY ‘IN RAINBOWS’.

—

Well, I do enjoy ‘IN RAINBOWS.’ Very much. And from what I can tell, there’s a whole lot of other folks that are enjoying this record today too. Nicci and I went down to Cambridge 1 for dinner (a hip pizza place in Harvard Square), and they were playing the record to a room full of folks there too.

Over and above anything else, this coordinated experiment shows that it’s still possible to build a huge buzz around a new record (not easy). Radiohead has succeeded in having many people hear their record for the first time, at the same time. If the new music business model involves using a discounted (or free) digital product to corral these folks into creating a word of mouth groundswell that can support a tour, merch, licensing opportunities, ringtones, etc, then it looks like they may have nailed it. They also have 6 other records (now available digitally for the first time on Amazon). Long tail anyone?

First, what the heck is Richard Wagner doing as the #1 artist on Amazon’s new MP3 store?

All signs indicate that the Amazon store will give iTunes a run for it’s money as the most popular online music store. First, all the music is DRM free (thanks in part to a feud between Universal and iTunes), and high quality. The site is incredible easy to use, searching for new music is intuitive, and my Wagner download (”Apostles Mean for Small Choir & Orchestra”, I had to hear what the big deal was!) took no time to appear in my iTunes interface. Songs are also variably priced as opposed to the flat $.99 or album only method that iTunes offers.

Yow!

Radiohead (who fulfilled their Capital Records contract with their last release, and are presently “unsigned”) have apparently set up a Web page where one could purchase their new record in digital form at whatever price one wants to pay for it. A physical release is also available, for 40GBP

Check it out:

http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/index.html

A couple of interesting things to consider:

1) The proper physical release streets in December with tons of bonus material:

From www.inrainbows.com:

[start]

This consists of the new album, in rainbows, on cd
And on 2 x 12 inch heavyweight vinyl records.
A second, enhanced cd contains more new songs, along with digital photographs and artwork.
The discbox also includes artwork and lyric booklets.
All are encased in a hardback book and slipcase.

[end]

The package sounds amazing, but thanks to the weak USD, I’d be paying more than $80 for it.

2) The digital release (with less music) is available two months prior to the physical release.

I love the idea from a band in Radiohead’s position. They make the bulk of their income on stadium shows and merch, and they have the name recognition and reputation to pull off a 40GBP package (which has a much higher margin for them as they do not need to split any proceeds with a label). It takes the Stars experiment of breaking street date with their digital release a step further by dropping the financial component.