The Rainbow Connection

Well, I'm now listening to the most dramatic intervention in the debates over online music since Wilco put Yankee Hotel Foxtrot online while waiting for its record company to quit dithering and release the band's best record. Radiohead's In Rainbows will inevitably be remembered at least as much for its distribution as for its content. The delivery this morning was amazingly easy, in sharp contrast to the purchasing process. One element that I have not seen addressed s forcefully as it should be in the various discussions of Radiohead's innovative approach to distributing this record is that whether one paid or not, the registration system for the record required joining Radiohead's mailing list. (Or didn't you read the sentence buried at the bottom of the Terms and Conditions which read: "Mailing list : By registering with the shop, w.a.s.t.e. products may use your e-mail address to send you Radiohead news, updates, ticket info etc." Oh, you say you didn't read it? Hmmmm. Go figure.)

For those who opted to pay nothing, this is arguably a fair deal. For those who paid even a nominal sum, this was not so fair. Sure, I can set up a spam filter to purge my impending Radiohead spam (however artful it may be, spam is spam). More to the point, Radiohead's approach is not scalable. While I might be willing to type in all of my vitals for the new Radiohead record, I am not willing to do this artist by artist for all the music I purchase, nor would I be willing to be on all of those mailing lists. Still, kudos to Radiohead for being both big enough and smart enough to generate such a huge publicity splash for this approach.

And, as a practical matter, Radiohead will probably see more cash from me on this release than they have ever seen before. While I like the band, I've previously been content to wait around for their records to hit the CD Clubs or used bins. Neither of these types of purchases do much for the band's bottom line (indeed, the latter does nothing for it). My payment of a few pounds — paid directly to the band — will certainly dramatically exceed all of my previous net compensation to the band. And while I'm old enough to be mildly mournful about the lack of a physical something to hold on to and scratch, some fan somewhere is probably developing her own JPEGs that she'll then upload as the unofficial cover for the record.


And physical copies are so 20th Century! while Prince also deserves credit for giving away physical copies of his most recent CD with a UK newspaper, that doesn't do much for those of us who weren't able to get our hands on a copy of The Daily Mail.

For the price of name, rank, and serial number + whatever one's conscience dictates, Radiohead's latest album is available to anyone with an Internet connection. No matter how you slice it, that's progress.

And the record sounds great.