The Jukebox No. 1

Musings on music and the recording industry

Ajitpaul Mangat, Staff

At 2:36 a.m. Central Standard Time, on Oct. 10, 2007, Radiohead released In Rainbows to millions of eagerly awaiting music fans across the world. If you listened close enough you could hear whimpering resonating from the dimwitted overlords of the moribund music industry. They were being beaten at their own game. With every passing year it becomes increasingly clear that the record industry does not understand how to save itself. It has resisted the digital, Internet age with a strangely zealous vile. Yet, in America, the big, generalist chains — Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy — recently announced they will be reducing the amount of retail space they devote to CDs. The issue being that they need sales to reach a profit margin of around 30 per cent, but music only gets 14 per cent. This announcement is a major blow to an industry that is already experiencing all-time low record sales, as these big chains account for 65 per cent of all sales. With the popularity of digital music increasing every year, will the industry finally undertake a much-needed revolution? There are signs that major changes might be on the horizon.

A top executive at EMI, Radiohead’s former record label, told staff, in a recent confidential e-mail, that the record industry had been too slow to embrace the digital revolution. The e-mail read:

“[In Rainbows is] a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.

“The recorded music industry . . . has for too long been dependent on how many CDs can be sold, rather than embracing [digitalization] and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, the industry has stuck its head in the sand.”

It was in response to the decision by the band to release their latest album via the Internet. With no music trend currently tent-poling record sales — the bubblegum pop juggernaut is a distant memory (O-Town, we hardly knew ya), and the public’s interest in rap music is waning (score one for Oprah) — the industry appears ready to finally address its dying, archaic medium: the 20-year-old CD. In Rainbows represents a zip filed beacon of light; it proves there are viable alternatives.

By releasing the label-free In Rainbows in such a novel fashion, it became the first album in years whose release date was actually anticipated. No traditional tastemakers (critics, radio) filtering one’s listening experience. Instead, music fans got that bygone communal music experience, harkening back to the days of cassettes and boom boxes, which should be just as prevalent in the digital age of MP3s and iPods, but bizarrely is not. Has the public therefore responded to the album because it is such a refreshingly anachronistic experience?

Although an interesting question, ultimately what matters to the record industry is whether In Rainbows’ communal experience, or other consequence, leads to increased returns (read: money doesn’t talk, it swears). Early projections indicate that bigwigs in corporate America have reason for curiosity, as Radiohead appear set to make out like bandits. The band’s controversial decision to allow consumers to decide on their own price has turned out to be a well-calculated risk. Early figures estimate that In Rainbows was downloaded 1,200,000 times in roughly three days. Even if no one paid more than the mandatory $1 service fee, the band still would have made approximately $1.2 million, which almost matches the $1.4 million made by their last album in over four years. These figures do not even account for the $81 In Rainbows box set, or the band’s upcoming world tour that will surely see increased audience figures with more people than ever aware of the band’s music. It is resoundingly clear that Radiohead’s experiment has succeeded with flying colours.

Johnny Greenwood explained to Pitchfork Media after In Rainbows’ release, “It’s just interesting to make people pause for even a few seconds and think about what music is worth now. I thought it was an interesting thing to ask people to do and compare it to whatever else in their lives they value or don’t value.” The clearest answer to Greenwood’s query is that the majority of music fans value music more if delivered in the proper medium. (Read: not CD!) Now will the record industry be able to hear them over their sobs?