You’d think by potentially increasing the profit percentage of all artists Radiohead would have the support of all other artists in the industry. From the responses of the like of Lilly Allen, Gene Simmons, and Mike Skinner of the Streets it seems that not everyone is happy at the prospect of letting the fans decide their fate. Why is this?
By and large the response from these people has been fairly unconcerned and tongue in cheek, there are a few expectations that deserve to have their point of view explained.
Lily Allen has been perhaps the most unsurprisingly aggressive, telling Rolling Stone Radiohead was, “arrogant.” adding “They’ve got millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who haven’t done as well,” Allen reasoned. “You don’t choose how to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?”*
In a separate piece, “Yes, Lily Allen, We can see it’s all lies” I’ve gone further into Allen’s comments and how they relate to her background. To address the comment immediately, we do actually choose how much we pay for eggs. We choose Free range, Batter(ed)y hen, we get our own chickens or don’t eat eggs. Each has a price we are choosing to pay.
Further into the same article Gene Simmons from Kiss claimed, “That’s not a business model that works. I open a store and say ‘Come on in and pay whatever you want.’ Are you on fucking crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?”*
There’s been no retort from Radiohead. Why?
There are many possible reasons. One of the most obvious is that the marketing of “In Rainbows” relies on an anti-marketing approach. Radiohead says nothing, the fans and other celebrities do all their marketing for them, speculating, just as I am, on how Radiohead have achieved what they have.
Another possible reason is that the exercise reinforces the theme of many of Radiohead’s releases- anti consumerism. In eliminating the marketing moguls and industry entirely from their relationship with Fans Radiohead is not just giving the industry the finger, but the whole capitalist mechanism. All while still making money.
There’s no doubt Radiohead will make some money from this release. They maintain a strong relationship with their fans. So a third possible reason comes to mind for the band not reacting to comments from the likes of Gene Simmons, Lily Allen and Mike Skinner- Yorke realizes opinions are like arseholes- everyone has one and everyone thinks theirs doesn’t stink.
2 Comments
November 19, 2007 at 2:41 am
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November 19, 2007 at 12:31 pm
It is a really revolutionary business model. Maybe it’s fear of the economic crash, see my spoof http://www.realcrash.com/lucky-couldnt-find-the-deed-radiohead/