Posted by zirafa on November 5, 2007 at 6:59am
Hey guys,
Just a heads up about another D.I.Y. digital distribution strategy. Saul Williams has released his new album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! (produced by Trent Reznor of NIN) online, and has given the option to either pay $5 and download the album in your preferred format - options available are 320 kbps, 192 kbps, or FLAC (lossless). The other option is to pay $0 and download the album in 192 kbps. I kind of like this strategy even better than the Radiohead release, mainly because it lays out the options very plainly. For me, I immediately opted to pay (they support Paypal too) and get the FLAC version. It looks like they are using Amazon S3 service to deliver the album.
Comments
good one..
Hi Zirafa,
Interesting approach, although I'm not so sure if making the morality play of pricing so blatantly obvious..
i.e. Saul Williams is giving the user has 2 choices
Choice 1 ($5) = I want to directly support the artists involved in the creation of this music.
Choice 2 ($0) = I'm not concerned about that. I just want the music.
I know where the artist is coming from, but, choice 2 is not far off saying "screw you. just give me the music for free".
Leaving aside the language used, I think it's a very positive initiative and I like the way it's very simple and clean, not unlike the Radiohead release. The "What exactly am I getting?" option was an inspired idea.
Do you know what the take up rate is for that Saul Williams release? i.e. how many paid and how many downloaded for free? It would be very interesting to know.
The only other thing I would add - and this is just my 2.0 cents - is that I don't recommend other artists to follow the Radiohead "which price?" approach for releasing full albums. However, I would recommend using the "which price?" approach for a a pre-release/teaser version of the album..which is precisely what Radiohead did.
There are only 10 tracks on the download version of In Rainbows. There are about 20 tracks on the full album (box set) and there is probably going to be about 12 songs on the CD version, which is due out soon.
We did a research site for a UK publisher called http://www.whatpricedidyouchoose.com (using the excellent webforms suite of modules) and while the results are stunning, people often forget that it was just a teaser version of the album. It isn't the full album. As an aside, we checked with Radioheads publisher and the average price we deduced from the survey was remarkably close to the figures they had via www.inrainbows.com.
dub
a few can afford that strategy though
Then how should one go releasing a full album after a radiohead-type pre-release? I believe that manufacturing,marketing and distributing a "box set" is out of reach for most mid-sized music bands out there, preceded by a pre-release downloadable teaser version of the album through a "choose-the-price" scheme. Not to mention that in the next 2-3 years in my opinion most bands will be questioning the necessity of a CD version, if they do still remember what CDs used to be ;)
I believe that a purely digital approach to publishing music will emerge and be adopted as the successor to whatever works (or doesn't) today. As I understand, artists want something more than selling a computer file, they want to sell a concept - when they have one - and with the current means of publication they can only choose a physical medium to do that. A "box set", a "disc bundle", a "song box" call it whatever you like, it's price will always be a limiting factor to both creating and and buying it. I did not purchase the Radiohead "box set" even though Radiohead is my life. I felt that if was going to buy something like that I should support a smaller band that desperately needs that extra dollar. But I forgot, smaller bands cannot afford box sets!
Go the digital way, pack your songs and your artwork in a online repository and get rid of physical distribution and manufacture. Then figure out a way to market your content. Give a teaser version for free before releasing a full album for purchase or create a mega-pack of all songs and all artwork for a higher price and higher quality. Freedom of distribution in the online environment means freedom of distribution everywhere.
OpenMusic, a network of Drupal based music social communities
A healthy disregard for the impossible.
I see your point but...
Hi Christopher,
On the subject of costs....don't forget that Radiohead sold a thousands of box sets, before they made them.
In other words, Radiohead not only knew exactly how many box sets to order from the manufacturer, but, they already had the money to pay the manufacturer, because people paid up front, in advance, because of the pre-release teaser download version.
A lot of smart bands and artists are using that approach...i.e. advance sales. Which is something that was impractical pre-internet.
So, I tend to disagree with the idea that "only a few can afford it". That's simply not true. There are many companies like Vinyl Recording who will press up vinyl for you in volumes less than 50...or even individual units (popular with DJs who want to convert mp3 to vinyl). So I don't accept that creating a box set is out of reach of even the smallest band/artist. Especially using a Radiohead model...where you sell in advance.
In theory what you're saying about going exclusively digital makes sense, but, in reality, music fans still like to "own" their favourite music. In the same way film fans still prefer to "own" their favourite movies. And their format of choice is either vinyl, dvd or cd. I agree that the CD as a format is over, but, the extra space that's available to artists on a DVD is transforming what the album concept is.
The concept of an album was, essentially, an accidental discovery based on the amount of content you could squeeze onto a piece of vinyl. Ditto for CDs, i.e. you were still restricted with what could go onto a compact disc, but, with DVD, the floodgates have opened wide and we're only just beginning to see what the new album concept is shaping into.
Young film makers or animators are getting together with maverick songwriters and artists and instead of pasting in a few interviews or backstage-cam fodder DVD albums are beginning to be much more interesting than just a collection of songs. Leaving aside vinyl and box sets for the moment, DVD is like a blank canvas to an artist. Anything goes and while it's still something that can be downloaded, I think many will still buy the physical.
I suppose the point I'm making is that music is an artform and it's the artists who will ultimately decide what way their album is released and what format it is in, regardless of what's a good idea. And for most music fans, if their favourite artist decided to release a box set with vinyl, DVDs, CDs and a book, most would cut off their right arm to have a copy.
Check this out..this band in the USA released 13 copies of their album, lathe cut by hand onto a set of three Master Acetates
http://www.thresholdhouse.com/arrivalsRacing.html
The acetates still worked on the turntable, although regular vinyl was included in case the acetates got damaged...and guess how much they cost each? £999 + p&p
And they sold out before they made them.
how brilliant is that?
Dub