Big Ideas: Don't get any

Some time ago Radiohead held a competition for remixes of "Nude" from "In Rainbows". This is one of the entries. Be patient, it kicks off at about 1'10". It's not samples, it's actual equpiment playing live, as James Houston explains on the YouTube page:

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX



Utterly brilliant.

Hooray for Radiohead!

Regular readers will be aware that the internal post people at my place of work are a bunch of utter bastards who have lost or stolen the lovely Radiohead discbox I ordered before Christmas.

So many hearty cheers for the lovely people at Radiohead's online shop, who were very kind and helpful and have sent me a replacement box which now sits enticingly by the hi-fi, waiting for me to get the vinyl out and give it a spin. Good, heavy vinyl too, none of your flimsy rubbish. It was great today to hear the album on CD, the better-than-the-download sound quality makes it glow.And the CD of extra songs is great as well. All in all it's a very beautiful object, definitely worth the 40 quid, and you won't be disappointed if you order one yourself while they still have some left.

I've written before about the possible impact the "honesty box" release of In Rainbows might have on the record industry, and it's wonderful to see them leading the way through the innovative method of being nice to their customers beyond what's strictly necessary. I'm a very happy bunny, for once.

Bastards

The very excellent Supergrass are playing a "secret" gig at Barfly in Camden this evening, showcasing songs from their new album. Unfortunately I'm not going because the bloody bastard underground's up the spout. Bastards.

The internal post at work has lost my Radiohead discbox. They're bastards too. Bastards bastards bastards.

Oh well, back to the drawing board, then.

Time, please, gentlemen

I read on a crappy free paper on the train home that a survey of 3,000 people who downloaded the new Radiohead album reveals that a third of them paid nothing for it, but the band still got an average of £4 per copy, which puts them quids in on what they'd get if they were signed to a major label. Apparently 12 out of these 2000 paid over £40, which must mark them out as insane, as they could have got the lovely discbox like 351 others of the sample (and me) and got the download thrown in free.

Overall I think this makes the experiment a success, and a heartening one at that, as it suggests that far from the internet heralding the death of the business of recorded music, that people will pay up for music they have faith in. Great news for those producing good music, bad news for corporate companies churning out soulless crap. Which is exactly how it should be.

In Rainbows

So, how much did you fork out for the new Radiohead album? Me, being the nerd I am, I forked out the forty quid for the big exciting box with books and pictures and extra music and lovely vinyl. So I have a posh bit of product to look forward to in 6 weeks or so. In the meantime, there's the download version, which I was emailed the link for this morning.

And hurrah! It's absolutely brilliant! What immediately strikes me at the first listen is that they've managed to combine their experimentalism with their undoubted knack for a good pop song in the killer way they've been threatening to for a while. So you've got twisted dance beats, weird retro-futurist sounds, but also big guitars and tunes. So it sounds more than anything like a band.

I ummed and ah-ed for a while about whether to have the big box, or whether to go for the pay-what-you-want download only option. I wonder what I'd have paid if I'd done the latter? Of course it's tempting to pay nothing, but that just seems wrong to me. I vaguely wondered about getting the download and then if I liked it going the whole hog, but in the end I decided to put my faith in them to deliver, and they've come through for me.

I think the way they've released "In Rainbows" is a fascinating experiment (apparently there'll be a conventional CD release next year), and I hope they give us an idea of how many people downloaded and what most people paid. They're lucky enough to be in a position where they can take a risk like this, and if it works, it'll have huge consequences for the record business and bands' relations with record labels.