The End Of The Record Industry?

Review n1
Name: Mauricio Catena
Articles: “Radiohead Says: Pay What You Want” by Josh Tyrangiel, October 1st, 2007, Time.com; “Radical Remix” by Josh Tyrangiel, October 3rd ,2007, Time.com. Link: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1666973,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1668161,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar


The world of Rock, and the record industry in particular, were shocked some weeks ago by the news that Radiohead, the English Alternative Rock band, was going to release their most anticipated new album without a record label, through the Internet and with no suggested price. The announcement was posted by the guitarist Jonny Greenwood in the band´s blog Dead Air Space. Their contract with EMI/Capitol expired in 2003 after their sixth album, Hail to the Thief was released. According to the members of the band, the way in which their new album In Rainbows is released is in part an experiment; it is exciting for them to know how much music costs for people.

Buying the record is rather simple; people enter to www.radiohead.com , download the record and pay what they want for the album, and it´s perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all. Everthough Radiohead´s strategy is a risky one, they are going to release a “tangible” version of the album in the traditional way, but this time it will be a box-set that will include an extra album, two vynils of the record and extra material such as a booklet and pictures.

Record industry executives are stunned by the band´s choice of commercializing their music on their own without the support of a record label. They claim that this could the beginning of a new era concerning the way music is sold. However, young bands won´t get benefit from this action because they need the support of a record label to get radio play and placements in record stores. Important and recognized bands should pay attention to this experiment; nowadays there is a decline in the sale of CDs, and artists get most of their income from touring. Apart from preventing record piracy, musician are the true owners of their music and they are free to sell it to the audience without the need of any intermediary. Record labels can be useful to the artists to get them live performances and publishing, so in a way they are not so prejudiced by the way the bussiness is done.

However, most of the consumers prefer one-stop shopping for their music, and a wise thing for the major labels to do is to help to create an ultimate digital-distribution site, where each band can sell their records at the price they want. The existing sites for purchasing music in digital format, such as iTunes, dislike record labels because of their insistence on controlling the prices.

Is it going to be the end of the record industry? We don´t know by now, but we have to be sure that the changes are coming.