Monday, October 15, 2007

1/3 of Radiohead fans miss the point

As reported previously, Radiohead announced that the release of their album would be non-conventional in that it would be free with the option to pay what you thought the album was worth. In true shithead form 1/3 of Radiohead "fans" paid nothing. Nada.

Let's chat about this for a minute. Particularly to those of you who paid nothing, if there are any of you reading this. I would like to congratulate you on officially missing the point. This "social experiment" as they called it was a fans opportunity to actually prove to Radiohead and to the record industry what you think bands art and talent are worth to you and 1/3 of you said it was worth nothing. Shame on all of you.

For those of you who would like to argue that perhaps people downloaded it to see if they liked it, I'm calling bullshit. You know that's not the case. Radiohead isn't a "let's try it out and see if we like it" band. They've been around for a million years and haven't had a radio hit in forever. If you're fishing around for the album, you've taken the steps to find it.

Greed is abundant in the music industry and those of you who download illegally and say it's because you don't want to support the record label or you think a band makes enough money need a reality check. Bands are bands because that is their job. They wouldn't be a successful band if they didn't deserve to be paid for it.

Nine Inch Nails is rumoured to do the same thing with their next album. Some of you will download it for free. Those of you who do are not only proving that art is worth nothing, but making it less and less likely for these artists to continue making music.

I guess this just proves that the only reason people still consider it wrong to steal a Picasso is because someone hasn't figured out the art of a perfect forgery.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want a goddamn product i can hold in my hands, even if it's destroyed in a fire or by a jealous ex...... AND I WANT FUCKING ARTWORK TO LOOK AT WHILE I LISTENING TO IT. That was the beauty of Vinyl.

Christoph said...

cross check the number of pre-orders for the special edition box version of the album with the number of people who downloaded for free?

plus who's to say that those people are perhaps contributing to the world with their own art and not getting paid for it? radiohead found a way to give them something for their unpaid efforts.

I haven't downloaded the album yet, nor have i decided how much it is worth to me.