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I wrote about British rock band Radiohead’s experiment to get rid of their record label and sell direct their music direct. The results are coming in and so far Radiohead has sold 1.2 million albums in just a week. They let their fans determine what to pay. I guess it’s sort of like Priceline for music. They settled on $8 (I can’t seem to find how exactly they arrived at this number) and that has probably made the band about $10 million already. Also amazing is that the number of albums sold in the first week is higher than first-week sales of its three previous albums combined.
As the New York Times reports, Radiohead is navigating some creative deals – including one that will let an indie label license the album for a period of time. Radiohead would retain ownership.
What I find amazing is that the site isn’t that easy to use. No matter, they have a fan base and they’ve shown this model can work. Talk about a revolution…the experiment is working. Others like Madonna and Nine Inch Nails to follow.
UPDATE—CNET reports that Radiohead says the average price set by consumers is £8, or $16 (not $8 as Mashable reported). However, the actual price paid, again as reported by CNET, looks to be £2.50 for the CD (about $5)—less than Radiohead would have earned per CD sold through their record company (£3 or $6).
