Radiohead fools fans with crappy quality (paid) downloads

Radiohead CDs on eBay USA | eBay UK | eBay GER

16 Oct, 2007

Radiohead to open box of Pandora for other lesser known bands?
(From our UK correspondent, Joyce Lafonte) It is not all gold that shines in Radiohead's recent move to offer its album as a download to its fans. A big majority of the 'buyers' of Radiohead's most recent album for instance actually seem to have 'purchased' the album for free. This also seemed the case with most of the 100 fans we contacted in the past 48 hours. 64 of them had paid nothing while only 11 had paid 1 UK pound or more with the maximum being 3,50 UK pound. This differs a lot from what has been written in various magazines reporting payments up to 10 UK pound. Strangely enough, all these reports refer to pretty insignificant research on Internet fora and hearsay from so called sources close to the band...

We tried the £ 0.00 option, downloaded the album and saw that no handling fee was asked (unlike what magazines have claimed in the past few days). The question remains if you'd really want to pay for a download like this since the files are encoded in a lousy bit rate of just 160kbps, a very mediocre quality that is. Selling CD's or decent quality downloads was clearly NOT the main concern of the band. The public that would still be unwilling to pay for the music will not be considered as a loss anyhow since all 'buyers' will be contacted later on when the band is playing live for ticket sales and merchandise. The main idea was to pull a larger public to concerts and that will probably be the case. The extras here and there are welcome but not the band's new core business.

A win - win situation? Not exactly because the move by Radiohead and other bands such as The Charlatans and Oasis could cause a real backlash to lesser known bands who cannot fall back on well paid concerts - if they even get booked at all that is - and who see their commercial products devaluated by factor 10. It remains to be seen how the market will react on what happens now, but everything seems to indicate that the gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' in the music scene will only be increasing and we are probably just witnessing one-hit-wonder tricks. So far the 'gentle' gesture by the most famous bands.

And so how does he album actually sound like, the most important thing after all... well, it is not new or refreshing and certainly not revolutionary as many journalists have written recently. It's not bad, but certainly far beyond the expectations created by the band especially with such a hyped release. Too much ado about nearly nothing...

Feel free to leave your comments !
Radiohead

Content Continues Below

Get your Radiohead CDs at the following eBay sites:
	eBay USA	eBay België/Belgique
	eBay UK	eBay France
	eBay DE	eBay Nederland

Radiohead CDs on eBay USA | eBay UK | eBay GER

32250

Posted by: Side-Line on Nov 13, 07 | 3:43 am

Radiohead is seen as a model band for many customers. What value do you think music will have in the future for those that have been convinced to download the Radiohead album at a cheap price or for nothing? That is a question you should ask yourself.

And that is what I find rather absurd. Radiohead actually promotes this idea and is actually 'punishing' bands that do not agree with them. We are talking about mass attention and mass influence here.

Saying that I blame the internet is really a bit too far, I have ben working in the e-industry since 1993 (e-commerce compies, e-marketing etc) but what I never agreed on was making everything free, valueless to the benefit of who? ISP's?

Sorry, I just do not agree with this, music has value, Radiohead devaluated it by 100%.

Posted by: synthburner on Nov 12, 07 | 8:33 pm

So now your blaming radiohead, a band that a large number of the fans of this site don't even care about, for killing an old business model that applies to all types of music? That's the funniest thing i've read in a long time. So you don't think the internet killed the old business model, Radiohead did? Where would sideline be without this website? If artists and the media don't adapt to the changing needs of the consumer, the consumer will go elsewhere. Many bands, labels and publications won't adapt and they will parish. There will always be motivated artist and media outlets that find a way to give consumers what they are looking for. That's why I do read this site.

For the record, I never said I liked it. I'm just not going to blame a popular band for trying something different, especially when it's obvious that the old business model isn't working anymore. Survival of the fittest has always been the law of the land...

Posted by: Side-Line on Nov 09, 07 | 5:27 am

No problem at all, but recent figures and the silence from Radiohead indicate that the whole setup failed to work as they had planned.

Killing young bands by demolishing one model deliberately is not the way to go. And that is what Radiohead has done.

You like this? That's your good right, we don't.

Posted by: synthburner on Oct 20, 07 | 12:24 pm

I can cope with someone else's point of view. There's another side of the coin that needed to be represented here, so I did. I thought this publication would have a little more progressive view of the music world than it apparently does. Using cheesy sensationalism to get traffic from Del.icio.us Digg or Reddit seems to be the plan. Of course this is only my opinion, so you shouldn't have a problem coping with that.

Posted by: Side-Line on Oct 20, 07 | 4:17 am

Synthburner, each his own idea... it would be petty sad we would just publish articles that satisfy everyone. Apparently you cannot cope with someone else's point of view?

Posted by: synthburner on Oct 19, 07 | 11:18 pm

This "article" makes me not want to read this site anymore. Was this written by someone who works for the RIAA? "could cause a real backlash to lesser known bands who cannot fall back on well paid concerts - if they even get booked at all that is - and who see their commercial products devaluated by factor 10"

The music world is changing at a very rapid pace and if you think most music won't be free (or pretty close to it) in the next few years, you aren't the music industry expert you claim to be. How does a lesser known band make it in the modern music world? By charging $17 for a cd? Yeah, good luck with that. You may want to talk to the folks over at dependent records to see how that business model works in this day and age. The fact is, the music industry has never kept up with technology or the internet. It has consistently sued any technology that threatens it's old business model of selling easily scratched plastic, and then it takes that product and wraps it in DRM which only screws over the fan. In this day and age a lesser known band has more opportunities for self promotion than ever before. Giving music away for free is one of the best way to establish a fan base. Overcharging a fan for a cd is a sure fire way to go no where in the current music industry. Commercial products devalued by a factor of 10? Obviously many people don't put that kind of value on an easily ruined disc anymore, that means it's time to innovate or get out of the business. Selling a cd is not the only way to make it in the music world, but of course that is what the old business model believers will try to convince everyone. Just as you tried to very unsuccessfully.

Posted by: Side-Line on Oct 17, 07 | 2:40 pm

hm, we didn't ask for an interview... if you wanted to imply that? for the rest I agee.

As for the album, sorry, but with such a hype it should have been a diamant, it's just plastic, so no probs for them.

Posted by: bugsstar on Oct 16, 07 | 5:55 pm

trust me
i know how it runs
and i also know how it runs in belgium with reviews in "quality" weekly/daily popular press.
I'm propably longer in "the business" than you.

Journalists get what they create it is that easy and if the radiohead camp won't give you that important interview because you did not kiss their ass, so fuck'm.
it's that easy to not publish it.
"journalists" use the same terror tactics.
everybody wants something for something else.

Side-line can do what they want. Only reason why the radiohead story is important is because it's another big band doing it without a label. But there are others like the coming Puscifer album for example.

And complaining about mp3 quality, it's about fucking time ! :) it's terrible finally everyone agrees on something.

Your news report on Neubauten was good. Which is the same category as this story.

It's not an attack on side-line, if you feel it as an attack it states more about your questioning your position than my "business" talk.

"their album is just not good enough"
what does that mean ? it's ok and not bad but i wanted to be more surprised ? not good enough?? on the subjective talk i can give you 100 cds side-line reviewed which were shit. so ?

it's easy if i hear it's not good enough... than do it yourself :)
a journalist is always a better musician

i paid 40 pounds for the box. its much better than hail the thief which is a big relief. So you atleast read somewhere that someone paid for the box and shitty mp3s.

Posted by: Side-Line on Oct 16, 07 | 3:24 pm

oh and just for the record, you really have little insight in how the music business is run if you think all this hype was created by the press out of the blue, it wasn't.

Posted by: Side-Line on Oct 16, 07 | 3:22 pm

actually the Radiohead camp has fed the press constantly with rumours etc. and for your info, this is the 1st time we report on Radiohead at all... probably the last time as well since their album is just not good enough...

Posted by: bugsstar on Oct 16, 07 | 3:15 pm

It is strange that the "journalists" claim it doesn't reach the hype when they are the main cause of such a hype. All radiohead did was spread a pressnote they were gonna release an album online and with a pre-ordering package deal without a label. Whatever the journalists do is out of their control. If it doesn't reach the hype you "journalists" created it's your own fault. What you all are doing now is telling everybody it isn't as good as you thaughted it would be. I don't care what "journalists" think, they used to be messengers but now they are make-believers. Now there's this other hype you "journalists" are doing, telling everybody it's no good as this or that. It's better than the previous, but it's an opinion.

It's all taughts. Some say this and some say that. Just report on news and not on stories you created.

Posted by: Side-Line on Oct 16, 07 | 2:42 pm

for your info, since this got posted several other magazines also reported about the pretty crappy encoding, and no not because we reported it.

and a sample of 100 is still much more than a sample of 10 like NME did for example...

And as far as the music goes, I actually listened to it as well now and it is really a below average album considering all the buzz on top.

That is our opinion, hence why we asked your opinion as well :)

Posted by: Delameko Stone on Oct 16, 07 | 2:16 pm

160 isn't bad quality. It comes down to quality encoding process. With the right MP3 encoding setup I can get a 128kb file to sound pretty close to CD quality.

You wouldn't listen to a badly mastered CD and say CD's sound like crap, would you?

And FYI, I paid �10 for the download. Seems a fair price for an album of music.

Posted by: batterycage on Oct 16, 07 | 1:31 pm

this is really not journalism at it's finest. this reads a lot more like a blog entry from a person that really doesn't like Radiohead's music.

i can tell you that there are several people in my office that paid 10$ for this record, and i haven't heard any complaints regarding sound quality. a random sampling of 100 people may not be the best poll, since they've had over one million downloads so far...which, given that it's Radiohead (one of the biggest bands in the world at the moment), is totally unsurprising.

Posted by: Dlock on Oct 16, 07 | 1:19 pm

I would call 160kb (CBR) the minimum acceptable for a mp3 track. I bet that at this encoding rate most that 80% of people couldn't tell the difference from CD quality. I still prefer 192+ (VBR) for a FREE mp3, but for REAL music I prefer the CD.
This article is very sensationalist IMHO... :/

Posted by: genDAV on Oct 16, 07 | 10:26 am

i wouldn't call 160 crappy but i wouldn't call it fantastic either

however i think its fantastic that they're free to make they're own decisions how they'd like to distribute they're own music

More related news :

2008 tour Radiohead too expensive say critics + Radiohead denies large amounts as mentioned in the press
EMI adds 90 minute live concert to upcoming Radiohead 7CD box set
Radiohead boxed
Radiohead charges fans for nude remixkits

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

Order your Side-Line merchandise

ORDER NOW:
- T-shirts
- Jackets
- Caps
- Bags
- ...

Worldwide shipping
(within 2 days after payment)

MORE INFO

Advertisers

Radiohead fools fans with crappy quality (paid) downloads

More headlines

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

RECOMMENDED MONEY MAKERS

THANKS TO

SHORTCUTS