Comments: Reactions to External Blogs

This week while exploring the blogosphere, I discovered two posts that piqued my interest and that I subsequently commented on. The first post I commented on is by Marketing Pilgrim staff writer Jordan McCollum and is a follow up of sorts to my recent post on the band Radiohead. In this post, McCollum discusses the success Radiohead has achieved since the release of its "free" album to consumers online one month ago. While McCollum points out that Radiohead has achieved some monetary gain, its much less than what many people had originally predicted. In response to this, I point out that McCollum and others are expecting too much too soon. The second post I commented is written by Brad Linder, an audiophile, freelance journalist and blogger for Download Squad, Green Daily, and TV Squad. Linder discusses the new Mbox Micro, the latest installment in popular audio recording company Digidesign's Mbox 2 arsenal. I build upon Linder's comments and suggest ways that Digidesign can improve its product. My comments can be found on the external blogs, as well as below.

Comment to McCollum: It goes without saying that what Radiohead has done with this experiment is truly revolutionary. Furthermore it is nice to see that Radiohead is making some profit, despite the fact that it is much less than what many people expected. One must keep in mind, however, that it has not even been one month since the album was originally released to consumers. Greg Sandoval, an author for CNET's News Blog points out in this article that it is probably much too early to determine whether or not Radiohead has been successful (monetarily speaking) in its endeavors. Sandoval quotes Chris Castle, (scroll down to see biography), a long-time music attorney and record executive for A&M Records, with the statement that "the money-generating lifespan of an album can last as long as two years. It starts when an act releases a record and continues when the performer goes on a concert tour." Traditionally, performers have released albums and then immediately afterwards toured to support the sales of their album. As Mark Ellen, editor of "The Word" magazine and music journalist, points out in this article, "[f]ive years ago people toured in order to sell records." With this in mind, Radiohead's limited success can be partially attributed to the lack of live performances this far into the experiment. Not only this, increased touring will undoubtedly lead to greater revenue generated by the sale of tickets, as well as the sale of physical merchandise and other paraphernalia that consumers cannot simply download for free. Therefore, your suggestion that people should find a more effective business model is premature. With the addition of touring, some marketing and promotion by the band, and simply time in general, the figures might change drastically, turning this experiment into a highly effective business model.

Comment to Linder: It is ironic how Digidesign releases the Mbox Micro as well as Pro Tools version 7.4 immediately before the big holiday season is it not? At first glance the Mbox Micro does seem really cool (see image), but as you pointed out, it is not - technically speaking - an audio interface as it provides no audio input to the computer. This is a drawback for true audiophiles who would like a small interface for recording "on the go". Yet it also makes sense that a true interface with a decent preamp and analog to digital converter would be significantly more bulky, diminishing the Micro's novelty miniature size. That aside, I might even consider purchasing the Micro for "on the go" mixing, but I feel that purchasing another $250 copy of Pro Tools LE software is a waste of time because I already own a copy. It might be more beneficial to Digidesign to offer the Micro at full price with the software bundle, as well as at a reduced price without the software for those of us who already have the latest version. You do bring up a good point, however, that as the number of high quality, hand-held flash recording devices increases, people interested in home recording are going to be doing less and less multi-track recording sessions, and therefore using Pro Tools as purely a platform for mixing imported audio files. The question then is whether or not the microphones in these hand-held devices can produce audio that is comparable to the traditional microphone and preamp combination. If so, then this could be the death of the large, multi-track audio interface market.

Radiohead: More Than Just Musical Geniuses

Although sometimes it seems like television, corporate power, and media attention are the sole forces at play when it comes to people finding out about new trends and ideas, a recent event has reaffirmed my belief that word-of-mouth is the most powerful means to finding out new information. The recent event I speak of is a short encounter I had with my roommate last week that lead to my discovery of a revolutionary thing occurring in the music industry today. He (my roommate) told me that popular English rock band Radiohead, are releasing a new album online to their fans entirely own their own accord, without the help of a record label. I did not think much of this news because plenty of artists (namely artists of the “indie” genre) have released music in a similar fashion online, without the help of a record label. Moreover, Radiohead have plenty of leverage when it comes to promoting material in the industry because they are a highly established band, making their feat seem even less impressive at first glance. Therefore, it was not until this weekend when I decided to delve deeper into this event. What I discovered shocked and impressed me – Radiohead is asking its fans to pay whatever they want for the download of their new album, which will be released on October 10th.

This is a genius move for the band and for the music industry in general. In searching for online commentary on this event, I came across an article on Clipmarks.com aptly titled Radiohead's Nail in the Music Industry's Coffin. Thinking about this further, however, it becomes apparent that rather than nailing the coffin shut, Radiohead is prying the coffin open in that this could be the move that saves the music industry from its current demise. While it is true that this move will destroy the traditional model of the record company having exclusive control of an album, if successful, it will simultaneously open up a new world of commerce for artists and consumers. Consequently, not only will this be a fool-proof experiment to find out how much consumers are really willing to pay for the download of an album, it is foreseeable that Radiohead is setting a unique precedent with this move. In essence, Radiohead's move will function as what Topper Smith – one of my music industry professors – calls the “bell-cow” for the industry. Topper believes that the bell-cow is a person or event that attracts others to a particular cause or course of action, and if Radiohead is successful in selling this new album, it is plausible that many artists will follow suit.

What artists need to do now is to train themselves to be the ultimate business people. Radiohead's move, whether commercially successful or not, is a cue to artists to learn how to not only create great music, but to manufacture, distribute, and market their music entirely on their own as well. They need to know how to record their music at home, how to create and run a simple website, and how reach out to fans in new and creative ways. The resources are out there for artists to take advantage of. There is CD Baby which provides artists with a friendly distributor of their physical albums as well as digital sales to iTunes and other online music stores. Or in contrast to this there is eMusic, which provides independent artists a means to selling their music online in the intangible realm, without DRM and at a low cost to consumers. And above all else, and as the image to the left suggests, the often overlooked method of word of mouth is a powerful tool for artists to utilize at their discretion.

One question remains: will Radiohead achieve success and revitalize the music industry? Only time will tell. In a later discussion, I asked my roommate how much he plans to pay for the album. “Nothing,” he starkly replied. Maybe Radiohead's attempts are futile.