I support this new model of business.

You decide what you pay? Wow. You know I bet the average album price comes out to be around $8-$12. I personally depending on the how good the album is would pay about $10 or 5 pounds UK. I wish you could stream it and listen to it first before buying it. After all if the album sucks (I know it's Radiohead and I know the chances of it sucking are pretty minimal) then maybe it's only worth $4 or something. Is this only on the pre-order?

what a nice surprise!
too bad the discbox is pretty expensive, because I really want one

edit:
I'm weak when it comes to Radiohead, I just preordered it =\

I'm not a big Radiohead fan, but damn this is a very very cool way to release an album. Plus, announcing it 10 days prior minimizes the hype and hyperbole...

After hearing Trent Reznor discuss the possibility of releasing future albums like that, I'm convinced that it's the only thing that really makes sense for album sales today. People who value the physical product will continue to pay for it. With the ease of p2p downloading, the only thing causing people who don't value the physical product to pay is simple honesty. No amount of effort from the band or the label will change that, so why not embrace it and generate some good will along the way? The end result is the same, except now you've got the eyeballs on your band's site instead of some shady Scandinavian torrent site.

Edit: Jeepers! I just read the whole blurb at the linked site and saw that they're now officially unsigned. The release strategy makes more sense now. It was amazing to think of a label actually signing off on that.

Anyway, good for them. I hope this album is a big success. Not that we need more evidence of the obsolescence of the music industry, but a win here would be the strongest to date.

I can't find any information on what format the download will be in mp3? AAC? Ogg? WMA?

I'm not a huge Radiohead fan, but I'll admit I haven't given them much of a chance. Can I download the album and then decide how much to pay later?

It looks like 0.45 british pounds is the minimum price (as that's their credit card fee). I tried 6 lbs at first, and then adjusted to 5.55 lbs to account for the transaction fee. $12 sounds about right to me for an album... and Radiohead's cut of that $12 should be pretty high compared to a store bought CD.

I'll be glad to pay $0.00 for a Radiohead album.
Edit: 1/2 a british pound! OVERPRICED

I heard about this on the radio today.

Opinion:

I like the idea and hope it works. Why you ask, well from what (little) I understand about the music industry most artists receive a small portion (lets say 10%) of the actual sale price of a CD when the end consumer buys it. Most CD's are at the $15 ~ $18 dollar range. Lets say in the ideal world then and based on my assumptions the artist receives $2.00 for the sale of a single CD. Sadly that leaves a lot of middle men (and woman) profiting for distribution and other things that have a history of little cost control and benefit to the artist.

With so many people into the MP3 / downloading / portable music player thing now, this just is a win for the artist and the fans.

I hope people pay $4 ~ $10 for the download and radiohead makes more than they would have with the record company deal, there is substantially less headache involved, the fans get what they want and the most important item, the record companies, lables, distributors, and the lot of people that used to make money realize their model is dying and they need to make some changes.

If people can get what they like, in a manner in which they like it, overall they will pay a fair price.

I hope this works.

Hear, hear.

If I were to go back and pay retroactively based on the meaning The Bends and OK Computer have held for me over the years, hundreds wouldn't be enough. I wouldn't give them a plugged nickel for Kid A or Amnesiac, although HTTT, easily their best since OK Computer, has been steadily growing on me. That one might be worth the price of a regular CD.

My biggest complaint with Radiohead is that they're too image conscious. They refuse to conform to popular tastes to such an extent that their music is becoming as artistically irrelevant as those who are slaves to it. Either way you let the mainstream define you.

Look at Pablo Honey. When Creep took off, they didn't follow it up with an album of sound-alikes, they instead wrote an album about how awful it was to be expected to write an album full of Creep sound-alikes, particularly the track My Iron Lung. When The Bends then became the definative alternative rock album, they followed it up with an album which, musically, was almost a complete departure. When OK Computer took over for The Bends as the album, they came out with Kid A. When everyone figured they'd finally settled on a direction, they stepped back a bit with Hail To The Thief.

Reactions to reactions to reactions to reactions. Inevitably, they've suffered for it. Radiohead is a stagnant band. OK Computer was the last truly progressive album they made. Everything since has been them experimenting in established if obscure genres, and it's not like any of their work in those genres has been pioneering or influential. It's more like they've been raiding the pantries of electronica, ambient, and other styles, lazily passing this off as some sort of bold artistic statement rather than forging their own identity.

They're still the most talented rock band in the world. Here's hoping they remember.

<3 Radiohead

This just reaffirms how much I like them.

I think you and I are just approaching this from a fundamentally different standpoint. I'm looking at this from the perspective of a long-time fan, so naturally we're going to see things differently.

I will say, however, that I think my views are entirely defensible. They're pretty much a reitteration of the views held by most Radiohead fans. If anything, they're a little trite. Certainly nothing below the belt.

You probably realize that you are a bit atypical when it comes to Radiohead fans. Try looking at Kid A not as a stand-alone album, but as a link in a chain. It might not make you agree with me, but perhaps you will be able to better appreciate why many of us have been frustrated by their recent efforts.

Your frustration is something I understand, but, as you predicted, I still don't agree. From my perspective, it seems as though the frustration stems from an attachment to Radiohead as guitar-driven rock. I think musical evolution is an important thing in the life of any artist, and that is what I see Kid A as.

That's an argument I can get behind, and I think it's something they're realizing with the release of In Rainbows.