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Radiohead Finds Sales, Even After Downloads

 

By JEFF LEEDS

Published: January 10, 2008

 

LOS ANGELES — In a twist for the music industry’s digital revolution, “In Rainbows,” the new Radiohead album that attracted wide attention when it was made available three months ago as a digital download for whatever price fans chose to pay, ranked as the top-selling album in the country this week after the CD version hit record shops and other retailers.

 

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The album, the first in four years from the closely watched British rock act, sold 122,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That represents a mixed result for the band. It’s a sharp drop compared with the debut of Radiohead’s previous album, 2003’s “Hail to the Thief,” but it’s far from a flop, considering the steep decline in music sales in the last four years and the typically weak sales in the post-Christmas period. “Thief” sold about 300,000 in its first week in 2003.

 

In any case the figures challenge the conventional wisdom that music fans no longer have an affinity for plastic. The sales of the album, which also snagged the top spot on the British weekly music chart, came despite the fact that “In Rainbows” — in the form of digital files — had been acquired by many fans after the band offered it in an unconventional pay-what-you-want offering through a Web site, inrainbows.com. The album was released on plastic CDs and vinyl LPs on Jan. 1, with the CD priced at $13.98, though it could be found for as little as $7.99 at outlets like Amazon.com.

 

Some retailers viewed the Radiohead figures as a sign of the continuing market for so-called physical products in the music business, where the popularity of iTunes, music blogs and other sites have made the digital file appear to be the coin of the realm. In particular they said even fans who received the digital files distributed by Radiohead may have decided to pay for the better audio quality versions on CD or LP.

 

“Having a physical, archival high-fidelity master recording that you can side-load into your MP3 player of choice for a similar price is significantly better than just purchasing zeros and ones,” said Eric Levin, owner of the independent record shop Criminal Records in Atlanta and founder of an 18-member alliance of independent retailers. “I feel like that’s what 75 percent of the people are saying.”

 

Mr. Levin said that at his store vinyl copies of “In Rainbows” outsold the CD by a wide margin. Demand for the album was such that some record shops put it on sale before the label’s planned “street date,” resulting in sales of about 9,000 copies the previous week.

 

But sales of the plastic and vinyl versions of the album also received a boost from digital services like iTunes, where the album sold about 28,000 copies. The iTunes service, which sells individual songs for 99 cents and albums typically for $9.99, had not carried any of the band’s previous albums, owing in part to Radiohead’s demand that its recordings be sold only as complete works.

 

But Bryce Edge, one of Radiohead’s managers, said the band decided to sell “In Rainbows” on iTunes because it expects that EMI, the British music giant that released the band’s first six albums, will soon post them for sale on the service, and it would be strange for the new album to be excluded. An EMI representative declined to comment.

 

The decision to release the music as a digital file so far in advance of the CD also allowed time for the music to circulate on free, unlicensed file-swapping networks. Big Champagne, a tracking service that studies file-sharing, estimates that the album was downloaded more than 100,000 times on free networks in the first 24 hours after Radiohead delivered it to fans who had preordered it from its Web site. But Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, said that by offering the music for as little as zero from their own site, Radiohead “stole market share” from pirate networks.

 

Mr. Edge said that sales of 100,000 copies of the album this week would be “almost certainly less than the number we would have achieved if we hadn’t” offered it as a digital download. But the band still came out ahead, he said, in part because it attracted so many fans to Radiohead’s Web site, where it collected e-mail addresses from fans looking to acquire the album.

 

The band has not said how many copies it distributed. Now that the CD is in shops, some fans who paid for the initial downloads may have been tempted to buy the album, in effect, for a second time. But Steve Gottlieb, chief of the independent label TVT Records, said he believed the sales mainly reflected fans who were acquiring the music for the first time.

 

“Radiohead is one of those really big groups that appeals to people outside the intensely pirating demographic of 16 to 29,” he said. “To the extent Radiohead still has a significant audience in its 30s and 40s, there’s a bigger audience of those people who will still pick up something at Best Buy or don’t want to bother with figuring out how to go to a Radiohead Web site and track it down.”

 

Still, Mr. Gottlieb said, the sales suggested that the band’s name-your-price offering, and fans’ subsequent free sharing of files, had taken a toll. “Clearly we can’t give it all away and expect to sell CDs,” he said.

 

But Radiohead will have yet more opportunities to gain fans. The band said yesterday that it planned to perform in more than 20 North American cities this year.

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i can only liken my surprise to the time i worked out that jonny and phil were in the band the weird sisters in the movie harry potter and the goblet of fire :laugh1:

HIM TOO????? :o :o :o :embarassed:

 

So you've never actually bought the albums before? If you want good copies of the cds, that's going to be the best way to get it.

 

EMI owns the copyrights. If you care about Kid A or OK Computer or whatever, you are ultimatly going to be either supporting or stealing from EMI in one way or another. The difference is that you are also going to be supporting a local record store (very important imho - too many of the good ones around here have gone bankrupt recently) and you will be supporting Radiohead.

 

I mean the choice will always be yours. But if you have the money, have access to the albums, and want to get them, it's stupid not to just because Guy Hands is a twit.

 

Yeah I would go for it. Because really it will be nice to have them all on good quality cds. Burnt cds tend not to last that long, they get scratched and skip.

 

I guess what I find interesting about this whole EMI thing is, this is the first time I've really looked at record companies and the way they deal with their clients (Radiohead) and the things they do to make money at the expense of their consumers. You buying one boxset isn't going to make or break EMI. But people thinking about the music and who they are supporting, well over time it could result in some big changes.

 

I think part of the reason I love the Arts&Crafts label so much is that it seems to be a good business model that works well with the consumers and the clients. That plus the fact all their artists are awesome. :P

 

 

So yeah nina, if you have the money I'd say go ahead an buy it, after all once you get that out of the way you'll never have to buy an EMI Radiohead cd ever again!

 

thanks .... but it's gone already :(

 

if they dont get more boxes, i'll buy only kid a. at keast something.

 

who people? you know people who like radiohead?

 

Well actually there's a teacher in my school who's travelling all the way to Milan to see them... and he's just an average guy with a wife and a kid, going to Europe isn't exactly on his regular agenda. AND I'm honestly not making this up, his license plate is RDIOHED !!

 

:worship: awesome teacher. AND he's going to Milano :P

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I want to go! :bigcry: I just am having too much trouble with the job situation. And all my friends who like Radiohead are apathetic...

 

 

Aww, i hope you will find someone who wants to go!

 

I dont have any friends either who like radiohead. Im glad ive got some cousins who got some good music taste. :nice:

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HIM TOO????? :o :o :o :embarassed:

 

:P

 

yesh. This was in the extras of the DVD, somebody posted it to youtube. I cant' believe the scene where they played the song wasn't in the movie. would've been the best scene then hehe. Jarvis and Jonny rock out. adn look at Phil's eyes hahahah

 

 

 

 

 

and look at Phil here too haha

 

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yesh. This was in the extras of the DVD, somebody posted it to youtube. I cant' believe the scene where they played the song wasn't in the movie. would've been the best scene then hehe. Jarvis and Jonny rock out. adn look at Phil's eyes hahahah

 

I think they left it out because of time and a very stupid lawsuit....

 

'Wyrd Sisters' cannot stop Harry Potter

 

 

An Ontario judge has dismissed a motion by a Winnipeg band that would have blocked the release of the new Harry Potter movie in Canada. Winnipeg folk group the Wyrd Sisters was in court Friday asking for an injunction to block the Nov. 18 release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

The group argued in court that they've owned the trademark to the name in Canada since 1990, and that release of the movie with a band purporting to have the same name will ruin their reputation.

In the J.K. Rowling book, there is a band called the Weird Sisters, a term taken from Shakespeare. A band also appears in the movie, played by members of Radiohead and Pulp; however, references to the band's name have been removed.

That doesn't matter, argued Kimberly Townley Smith who represents the Winnipeg group. She said the fact that people could confuse the two groups is damaging to the group's founder.

 

and http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1510896/10042005/story.jhtml

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Radiohead confirm North American tour

 

And ‘In Rainbows’ is Number One in the US

 

Radiohead have announced the cities they will visit on their upcoming tour of the US and Canada.

 

In the wake of their newly crowned Number One title today for ‘In Rainbows’ the band have revealed they will play in the Us before their recently announced shows in the UK and Europe.

 

They will then return to the US for more shows after the European dates,

 

The cities to be visited are listed below. Actual venues and dates are yet to be unveiled.

 

Atlanta

Boston

Charlotte

Chicago

Cleveland

Dallas

Houston

Indianapolis

Los Angeles

Miami

Montreal

New York

Philadelphia

San Diego

San Francisco

Santa Barbara

Seattle

St Louis

Tampa

Toronto

Vancouver

Washington DC

 

http://www.nme.com/news/radiohead/33548

 

 

YAYYYYYY! :dance:

i'm totally hitting NY and philly. i just hope those dates work in my schedule!

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I've never loved radiohead. I got ok computer a while ago, and i think its a very good album. Then i got Kid A and didn't love it. But i listened to it again today, and i liked it a lot. I think i'm gunna start listening to more radiohead now! Which album should i get next?

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I've never loved radiohead. I got ok computer a while ago, and i think its a very good album. Then i got Kid A and didn't love it. But i listened to it again today, and i liked it a lot. I think i'm gunna start listening to more radiohead now! Which album should i get next?

 

Yeah like Mo said, I'd go for In Rainbows next.

The Bends after that.

Amnesiac next.

Hail to the Theif after that.

And then finally Pablo Honey (hugely underrated)

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In the category of DOH!:

 

Much Music showed the scotch mist webcast late last night, but because it wasn't announced, I missed half of it. Would like to have recorded a dvd. :\

 

Couldn't sleep, the computer was off because of the thunderstorms, so I decide to watch tv. The wedge was on (late night indie videos) and there is Thom singing Jigsaw! :stunned: They'd devoted the entire hour to the webcast.

 

It seems so different on tv....

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Oh man a DVD copy of that would be nice. I wish I had a DVD burner.......maybe they'll show Scotch Mist on it again some time and you can record it.

 

p.s. That thunder storm was nuts. I was still on the computer while it was going on haha. Not the smartest I know. I just figured there was no point in even trying to go to sleep with that racket.

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