You Pick the Price

Radiohead are releasing a new album, In Rainbows,  They're selling pre-orders for a Discbox to be shipped on or before December 3rd, and are also offering a digital download, supposedly to be out within ten days.

Here's the neat thing about the digital download, as discovered by Moe C.:

i added the hard copy to my basket just to see, and it was $40. i added the digital download and the price was a fill in field. there was a clickable question mark. THAT said "it's up to you", with another question mark. that one said "no really, it's up to you!"

Considering a new album from iTunes costs $9.99, And Apple and the record company would be taking their rather substantial chunk from that, which would probably not make even the $2 or so that a band typically makes off of a CD sale. So if even one Radiohead fan in five fills in the very same amount, $9.99, they'll come out ahead. Especially since this is on top of the fact that they've already sold you the boxed set.

It would be very interesting to see what the eventual average price people choose to fill in would be.

As for the album itself, I have not been paying attention to the rumour mill at all so I have not heard a thing about any hints about musical direction they might be heading in. I just hope they are heading in one, the last few albums have been good, but it feels like they haven't progressed much since the 90s. They're still good enough that I'll probably still get it sooner or later, though. They're just one of those bands that I tend to expect more from.

Labels: Business, Music