Here's an great article Eoin wrote for The Bookseller on the effects of Radiohead's album marketing plan.
It's certainly got folk thinking, and rightly so. Media is in a transitional period, with publishers (music, book & otherwise) constantly shifting to try to get comfortable with the idea of the new digital world.
Personally, I am fond of Radiohead's method. It's cheeky, but fair. You can always buy the physical album (and will be rewarded for doing so), but they are demonstrating that they are aware of the realities of the digital medium and are prepared to play ball.
At this point I have to give credit to Harvey Danger, a band whose early material I was quite a fan of. As far as I was concerned with the release of their third album 'Little By Little' they hit the nail on the head. The album was available to download artwork et al from their website for free. Those who liked the album and bought the physical copy were rewarded with a load of bonus material, including a bunch of songs. Radiohead seem to have followed pretty much this model, with the notable exception of more fanfare (them being Radiohead).
So kudos are due to Harvey Danger, they've got an eye on the future, and are definitely on the right track.
1 comments:
Rob,
Thanks for the link and the positive vibes! Your blog is really excellent.
I think Radiohead are very savvy and for them the move was smart. For publishers it creates an issue and presents problems for us (publishers) in the future, we might not make any money! No bad thing perhaps but for smaller, less well know artists that is the danger too!
Eoin
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