Changing Way

If you’re suffering from Radiohead overload, skip ahead. I’m obviously not, since I’m leading with a portrait of Thom Yorke which, by the way, is by Joshua Gorchov.

The first show of the tour, in Florida, has just finished. I won’t be able to catch the Boston show (or indeed any other).

I haven’t even had time to watch all of the session from Nigel Goodrich’s basement, which is up at VH1. I will, though, since I was blown away by the preview/teaser: a great version of Reckoner.

Tomorrow sees the CD release of Elvis Costello’s Momofuku. My earlier post on the album has been way more popular, at least by the humble standards of this blog, than I expected.

Enough of this Brit rock. It’s Cinco de Mayo, and the song of the day at the Rhapsody blog is a rather wonderful cover version of “Mexican Radio” by Kinky.

Enough, for the moment, of this Brit pretending to be a music blogger. If you want to read a real music blog post, check out Heather Browne’s tremendous account of day 3 at Coachella. She’ll take you there.

The new year webcast by Radiohead has been posted on YouTube, both in its entirety and song by song, by the band (or its representatives). Here’s the lovely sparse outdoor version of “Faust Arp,” preceded by one of the rather droll between-song narratives.

By the way, I previously posted the studio version of “Faust Arp.”

So, Radiohead released In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-please download. What percentage of downloaders paid nothing? comScore’s estimate of 62% has been much written about.

So has the response from Radiohead. According to NME, the band has described comScore’s numbers as “purely speculative” and “wholly inaccurate.”

Now there’s a post from Andrew Lipsman of comScore, defending the firm’s Radiohead report.

comScore reports are derived from a representative sample of 2 million Internet users, who opt in to our panel and allow us to observe their actual online behavior, including e-commerce transactions… For the Radiohead study, we observed the activity of nearly one thousand people who visited the “In Rainbows” site, a significant percentage of whom downloaded the album. We ultimately observed several hundred paid transactions.

On yet another hand, Stan Schroeder at Mashable seems impressed with Radiohead’s statement that “it is impossible for outside organisations to have accurate figures on sales.” He goes on to say that: “I have no reason to believe that comScore skewed the results on purpose, but they definitely fumbled the ball on this one.” Some commenters on his post do think that comScore might have been paid off by the music industry.

I’m not so sure that comScore fumbled this one. What concerns I do have arise from the people in the sample. Are the people who opt in to a panel really representative? Do they, knowing that there clicks are being captured, act as they do when they actions are not being recorded and analyzed by comScore? I am more concerned with these questions than with the issue of sample size.

Silly me. What I thought was a brilliant move by Radiohead now looks to be a sleazy move by EMI. According to one of Boing Boing’s many sources:

EMI is putting out all those reissues without the band’s participation, blessing, permission or involvement at all. They are doing it as retribution for the band’s decision not to go with them in releasing the new album.

It’s about a month since Radiohead released In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-please download. Recently, much has been made of the statistic that 62% of those who downloaded the album chose not to pay for it. For example, Daniel Langendorf quoted Fred Wilson’s remark: “I am surprised by the number of freeloaders.”

As an aside at the end of the same post, Daniel remarks that Radiohead will be working with EMI to release its back catalog on USB. Actually, the 7 albums are available in 3 formats: USB, download, and even, for the nostalgic, CD.

Since I never got round to buying Radiohead before In Rainbows, I’ve added the back catalog to one of my wish lists. I doubt that I am alone in this.

So one effect of the In Rainbows download will be to promote the back catalog. Another will be to promote the In Rainbows CD. Yet another will be to promote the international tour starting next spring.

As you can see, I don’t buy the implication that free downloads of In Rainbows represent forgone revenue for Radiohead. First, they serve as promo giveaways for other stuff. Second, they represent many people who wouldn’t have paid money for the music, either because they don’t pay money for any music, or because they wanted to try before buying, or they weren’t big enough fans of the band.

As Glyn Moody remarks, Radiohead really get the hang of this new music stuff.

The new Hype Machine aroused much… hype, you might call it. Fred Wilson was enthusiastic. Marshall Kirkpatrick was positively giddy: “beautifully redesigned… social networking component is very nicely put together… very handy Twitter integration… a widely loved service.”

My reaction is rather more mixed. I should start by saying that I value what I see as Hype Machine’s basic service: it helps me find music that people have posted to their blogs. I like the favorites feature: here are my favorites @HM. On the other hand, I am among those who regret the loss of the playlist feature.

The lack of playlists sent me scuttling over to my account at Seeqpod, where there be playlists. I just created one: CoverBurb, which starts with Thom Yorke announcing “the sexiest song ever written” and then Radiohead doing an amazing version of… Hey, go and listen for yourself, then enjoy the duet between Billy Bragg and Jill Sobule.

Seeqpod is very much in beta, so I won’t grumble about its awkward aspects. I will say that it’s not (yet?) as good at finding music as Hype Machine. For example, when I try to find Yo La Tengo backing Daniel Johnson on his song “Speeding Motorcycle,” I get Daniel doing it solo (which is great, but not quite what I was looking for).

Hey, wouldn’t it be good if it was possible to mash the two services together? Seeqpod has an API. Unfortunately, HM doesn’t. Or, if it does, it evaded my attempts to find it. (I have an email in to HM to check this, and will pass on the reply if it say anything other than “No, we don’t provide an API.”)

The world’s most powerful music executive aims to join forces with other record companies to launch an industry-owned subscription service, according to Business Week. Said exec is Doug Morris of Universal. Doug thinks that the music labels have given Apple too sweet a deal. “We got rolled like a bunch of puppies” is his description of the negotiations.

The new service will be called Total Music, and will be funded by a tax on TM-compatible music players. Gizmodo identifies one downside: “this is clearly not a move away from DRM, but towards more of it. You can bet those downloads are going to be wrapped thicker than a 5-year-old’s Christmas present.”

TechCrunch identifies another problem: it’ll make the music players too expensive. “Total Music may market itself as offering free unlimited music, but it’s not really free, the cost is just hidden. That cost: $90 per device.”

Total Music already looks to me… how to put this… as dead as DRM? In as much trouble as a major music label?

Talking of major labels, it seems that one of the big four will release In Rainbows early next year. Gizmodo described this as a cop-out. Indeed, if you follow the link, you’ll see far harsher terms. You’ll also see a more recent acknowledgment that the CD release was intended all along, and shouldn’t come as a surprise. I’m neither surprised at the news nor annoyed that I paid for the download.

I’m tempted to describe Radiohead’s impending bargain with a major as Faustian, but I think they’ll get a far better deal than that would imply. But here’s “Faust Arp,” one of my favorite tracks from In Rainbows.

My first two attempts to give Radiohead money for In Rainbows failed. But third time was lucky, or the site’s problems were fixed, and there were no problems with payment last night. Neither were there problems with download this morning.

So I’m among the millions of people currently listening to In Rainbows, and among the (thousands?) currently writing about it. The Guardian has a predictably large amount of coverage. For example, Paul Morely reviews it, pointing out with tiresome frequency that it’s too soon to do so.

The image is from a 15 years of Radiohead photo feature. It bears a pleasingly snide caption.

The Observer listed the Bends… as one of the 50 albums that changed music: ‘In parallel with Jeff Buckley, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke popularised the angst-laden falsetto… Without this Coldplay would not exist, nor Keane, nor James Blunt.’ Talk about a backhanded compliment.

I’m enjoying my first listen to the album, thanks very much. I paid 3.14 (+ .49) UK. I’m afraid to check how much that it is US$ these days.

Radiohead have finished their new album. It will be available as a download, without any record label or store as an intermediary. It will also be available as a deluxe “discbox,” but let’s concentrate on the download.

This is huge news, for reasons including the following: the price for the download is set by the customer; there is no record label involved; it’s Radiohead! Choosing your own price to download music isn’t new; for example, Jane Siberry has used this model for years now. But the current story is about… Radiohead!

Daniel Langendorf at last100 found some good quotes for his post on the story.

• Thom Yorke, when the band’s contract with EMI expired four years ago: “it probably would give us perverse pleasure to say ‘f*** you’ to this decaying business model.”
• A record company exec: “If the best band in the world doesn’t want any part of us, I’m not sure what’s left for this business.”
• A record producer: “if you can pay whatever you want for the music by the best band in the world, why would you pay 13 dollars or 99 cents for music by somebody less talented?”

Daniel also remarks that “pre-ordering In Rainbows was a pain.” I certainly found it so. I got two different error messages while using the site, and no confirmation email. I’ll try again tomorrow, and I’ll check my credit card statement soon.

I dread to think how busy the site will be when it starts to allow the (millions of?) prepaid downloads. Perhaps dread is too strong a word; perhaps it should be reserved for how major record labels must be feeling now.