Radiohead May Have Made $6-$10 Million on Name-Your Cost Album 539
mytrip passed us a link to a Wired article indcating that if music industry estimates are correct Radiohead has made as much as $10 million on the 'In Rainbows' album so far. This despite the estimates of widespread piracy of the album as well. "[The estimate assumes] that approximately 1.2 million people downloaded the album from the site, and that the average price paid per album was $8 (we heard that number too, but also heard that a later, more accurate average was $5, which would result in $6 million in revenue instead).
I remembery trying to pay for this album (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I decided it was alright but not really worth paying for.
I wonder what Radiohead thinks about all the people who tried to pay for their music, couldn't and downloaded it / got stoned instead.
Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Six. Million. Dollars!!
Beyond discounting the damage of piracy to RIAA partner profits, the fact a band can raise at least that much money selling their own album suggests the bar is now so low bands need not sell their souls out for a record contract.
So Madonna is considering a fat new contract with some record company, that's their mistake. She's past her use by date anyway.
I think I need to record some of my own music and see how it flies.
Pure profit? (Score:1, Interesting)
Figure for comparison? (Score:2, Interesting)
Would have been more $ if download was 160 kbps (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One thing's for sure: (Score:5, Interesting)
would artists make the same sort of profits (eclipsing POS sales) if this model was more common place?
dunno
but it's a bit shortsighted to take one positive example and treat it as a working model
Re:I remembery trying to pay for this album (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd gladly paypal a few dollars to them if they'd put up a link.
(How bad must a store be when paypal seems trustworthy in comparison?)
Re:Finally! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine if half a dozen well-known bands/artists created a new music site where any music artist could join. Sell MP3s at a very low price and have a physical product at a reasonable cost where all the profit goes to the artists (less a small admin fee to help run the site).
Allow users to rate/review songs and albums.
It would have the potential to destroy the record industry & possibly iTunes.
Re:One thing's for sure: (Score:2, Interesting)
Now we know the first band to do this can make money. Let's see if the 20th band to do it can after the novelty has worn off.
Honestly (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't like the music, just look at it as making a donation to the cause of destroying the RIAA.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cue Mozart's Requiem for the RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never been one for going out to hear local musicians -- but in the past year I have been to several local concerts in bars and small theatres, and almost without exception I have immediately purchased one or more CDs (indie, of course -- often they're just burned CD-ROMs) from the artist. I have been frankly amazed at how good some of the these unknown local artists are. So the whole "having to go out to bars" thing has certainly worked for me.
My Indie/Unknown Band is Trying This (Score:2, Interesting)
See for yourself here. [stellarvector.com]
Not as Altruistic as First Appears (Score:5, Interesting)
Radiohead has always been planning on releasing their CD [gizmodo.com] in January. Putting out a 160 kbps crap quality version is there way to whet your appetite for the real CD, which will probably contain more content than the mp3 release and be of much better quality.
Re:and that is the threat to the big labels; (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll have a professional organization, but no lobbyists and no power. They'll be more or less fungible--Home Managers, parallel to Road Managers. Some will even do both.
Re:and that is the threat to the big labels; (Score:2, Interesting)
though quite often sales-jobs are commission-based, and it would suprise me a lot if that changed for publicists. the more money I make, the more money you make is often a good deal for all involved parties; though like I said, I think the power-balance here will shift away from the labels and towards the artists, so the cut (for the publicist) may shrink.
Re:There is only one way to find out the truth. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Radiohead has been in business for, say, 21 years.
2. Radiohead signed a SIX album recording contract with EMI, that promoted the hell out of them for two decades.
3. Labels were indirectly, but substantially, responsible for changing their name from "On a Friday" to "Radiohead".
4. They recently admitted that working without a label is "both liberating and terrifying"...
Yeah, that will teach those labels! Bands that have been busting their ass for 20+ years don't need them any longer! Somehow, I don't think if I put up my album under the same conditions, that I would make daily front page at Slashdot and spend an afternoon thumbing my nose at the labels.
These guys have paid their dues, toured until exhaustion, and have worked within the system for longer than a lot of people responding here have been alive. People, please, get off of BitTorrent and just pay a nickle, or a quarter or a dollar for every song you really like on their site. At least give the rest of us without the Radiohead exposure the hope that if we earn even a fraction of their commission, we'll be ok...
Clapton agrees... (Score:4, Interesting)
They would have made more (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Interesting)
It doesn't really prove that. Radiohead were already famous. They were made famous by two record labels that spotted their talent and invested lots of money in them. Radiohead are pretty fucking good, but talent doesn't always float to the top by itself. We'd probably never have heard of them had money not been spent on them to allow them to buy decent equipment and market their records.
Times have changed since Radiohead started out, but it still doesn't hurt to have a label backing you.
Re:and that is the threat to the big labels; (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:for the record (Score:2, Interesting)
For the kind of service you'd need for a major item like the Radiohead cd, you're looking at a completely different service. With a service like Amazon S3, you're talking almost $17k to provide 1,200,000 downloads of a 100mb file.
Economies Of The Industry (Score:2, Interesting)
The challenge isn't making $6m with a successful act.
The challenge is in identifying the one band in ten, if you're lucky, that'll be that successful act.
If a typical band blows a half million dollar advance on recording an album and it flops, the record company is out the advance.
To deal with this, they write contracts that mean they recoup the 9 flops from the 10th breakout.
Those contracts are perceived as screwing successful artists because they take so damn much money from them once they are successful. What the artists are conveniently ignoring is they quite happily spent the advance while they were convinced they'd be the greatest thing ever but the label knew that hadn't been proven yet.
Radiohead ditched their label and all of the costs associated. Getting a much higher chunk of revenues, $6m is likely a great profit for them and likely far better than they'd get under a traditional deal. The question is whether any of that profit will get re-invested in advances for other artists in the way it would with a label trying to grow a stable of artists rather than just one band?
The industry does a hell of a lot wrong. They're slow to react, arrogant and treat their customers like criminals. On the flip side, they do at least have a [debatably flawed] structure for developing talent... an area where Radiohead's taking all of the profits may well fall short.
Re:and that is the threat to the big labels; (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll lay all my cards on the table, I'm a turnaround marketing consultant. I make A LOT of money showing business entities how to reformulate their images, re-purpose their delivery mechanisms, and polish their overall revenue generating vectors (god that sounds like awful marketees).
You know how I do it?
By showing them how consumers actually want to consume.
PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO LIVE THE WAY BUSINESSES WANT TO TELL THEM HOW TO LIVE!
That shit is dead. You can make more money doing it all yourself and by NOT pushing it to everyone on the planet. You don't have to lie. You don't have to falsely claim you're something your not. You don't have to INTRUDE. You don't need to buy into the A&R guys pitch.
DO NOT LET THE INDUSTRY TELL YOU YOU HAVE TO DO IT THEIR WAY! It is a lie. There are more than enough people out there who want to hear the music you make who will pay you for it. Enough who will pay for it and enable you to live comfortably.
YOU HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE. Do I want to be a "rock star" or do I want to live by creating music. The two are not the same.
XTC was doing this shit IN THE FUCKING 80's.
I have worked with "capitalistic" businesses. I have taken their money and they have failed. I have worked with "idealistic" businesses. I have taken their money and watched them flourish utilizing the knowledge I have passed to them.
It isn't rocket science. I'll even give it away for free right here.
Don't tell people they want you, make yourself available to people who want what you have.
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Interesting)
Essentially, everyone will continue to ask the question "Do we still need the labels?" until we have a band become successful without them. On the flip side, the lack of a successful artist without one will never remove the question of whether they are needed.
Essentially, I think the question posed is pointless. The utility of the labels is being determined now because this is the first attempt of independence by a big name. Smaller names won't get a chance until a means to discover them becomes popular.
Re:Who the fuck is radiohead? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One thing's for sure: (Score:3, Interesting)
500k Albums is Gold, 1m Albums is Platinum, 2m is Multi-Platinum (double plat, triple plat, etc), 10m is Diamond.
US Sales for Radiohead look this... Pablo Honey - Platinum 1m-2m, The Bends - Gold 500-1m, OK Computer - 2 x Platinum 2m-3m, Kid A - Platinum 1m-2m, Amnesiac - Gold 500-1m, Hail to the Thief - Gold 500k-1m... For a total of ~5.5m-10m albums sold.
If they got 3$ per album sales (they wish) they'd have made ~16.5m-30m on cd sales alone.
If people paid an average of $5-$8 per album downloaded and 1m people downloaded the album that means they made almost 1/3-1/2 of their *total previous combined album sales* in a best case scenario and that doesn't include the boxed set people could have purchased. If you use realistic numbers for what the labels were paying them on each sale and use 1.2m downloads at an average of $5/ea
The only thing the labels provide that is actually of value is getting your stuff played enough to get you to critical mass... but they rape you doing it.
Re:Who the fuck is radiohead? (Score:2, Interesting)
It may not he huge in raw numbers, but if poll figures are correct, In Rainbows will have the highest profit margin (for the musicians) of any album ever released.
That's where the story is here. Radiohead bypassed the record companies, gained big kudos from their fans, and look like they've made about four times as much as if it'd been released through an RIAA member.
Why would you sign with a recording company, or even iTunes again?
Re:Who the fuck is radiohead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:and that is the threat to the big labels; (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Finally! (Score:3, Interesting)
Compared to the first week of Thief, Rainbows sold at least four times as many copies, and each copy of Rainbows, on average, netted Radiohead more and cost customers less.
However you slice it, this release was an unmitigated success for Radiohead, not to mention their fans.
So much for the Record Company (Score:4, Interesting)
Now you consider $8.00 per album and the $6 to $10 million made and you know this was the right move for them. It opens up the world for them. It breaks the cartel set up by the recording industry and essentially issues a pink slip to all of them and any employee that promoted that decadent system to begin with. No more billionaire recording company, instead the artist gets the benefit of their artistic talents.
This is really incredible because if they have made that much money they have changed the whole structure of how music will be sold. It is a very glorious day that the recording companies are now going to be removed as the middle man. It also means that if music distribution becomes primarily done through this mechanism we'll see a major shift away from those recording taxes on everyone that buys CD blanks, etc.
Now consider this, no more lawsuits against Radiohead customers, none of their money going to the RIAA to allow them to fund lawsuits against old ladies, the disabled, and even the dead. Just amazing if other artists recognize the value of this and move to this same model. Hey, I might start buying music again.
What a wonder the internet is. All the recording industry can say is "bad internet, bad bad". But the artists can say "good internet, good good" because they can now make the money the deserve from their efforts. This is total unequivocal proof that the recording industry, the content rights holders, and their lobbyists are wrong.
Re:Who the fuck is radiohead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there a rule that torrent should be ONLY use for piracy? Can't we get a private tracker URL which would be 100x more secure for them too? I am saying secure since even multi million companies which were founded by sole reason of conspiring p2p couldn't mess with private trackers
I have found the cause of RIAA/big record company puppet media's "It was free but still pirated" thing. People PAID for it and downloaded from Trackers since the HTTP server couldn't cope with millions of requests. That is what Wired(.com) says and I believe it is true. If my browser couldn't resume or I was a ordinary user who doesn't figure there is a chance to resume (via cookies etc), I would do the same thing too. Remember, we have already paid for it anyway.
If these numbers are true, this is a giant step in music scene. I bet the usual suspects being open to major changes will follow them.
I would love to see a multi million selling artist like Madonna shipping her own music using torrent technology and those ISP's support lines get overhelmed because they have filtered torrent traffic thinking it is for piracy only.
Aliasing (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why I don't read
Methinks you don't know what the numbers mean in this case, either. Think about it for a second--if you were to encode a 22 kHz sine wave (nothing complicated right now) with a 44.1 kHz signal, how many points would you have per cycle? Exactly two. One for a peak, one for a trough. What does that spell? TRIANGLE WAVE. And those sound nothing like sine waves, which you probably know if you've ever played an old Nintendo game. But it's worse--the triangle wave will only resemble the sine wave in frequency if sampled at exactly the right places (peaks and troughs) but will be silent if sampled at the point that the wave is at zero amplitude. This is the problem with aliasing. This is why CDs will never sound as good as analog, regardless of the nominal frequency range. Analog frequency and bitrate are limited by the recording equipment and the medium (e.g., acetate records). Realistically, you need about eight points per cycle to represent a sine wave, meaning that CDs, with their 44 kHz sampling, only capture realistic sounds up to about 5 kHz, not 22. Above that frequency, it all starts to become electronic-sounding. And for more complicated waveforms, eight samples per cycle is still inadequate, meaning those waveforms sound "muddy."
Caveat: I am not an electronic engineer, and I don't know how aliasing appears in the frequency domain (i.e., mp3s ripped from CDs), just the time domain. But CDs use the time domain, so these limitations do apply.