Looks like [tag]Radiohead[/tag]’s latest independent approach to album promotion and sales, basically giving away their latest LP for how much you see fit, has sparked a wave a of revolution amongst the influential bands in the industry. Yesterday it was time for Trent Reznor and NIN to join in, after terminating their contract with their label and announcing “some exciting times for 2008.” Today we’ve found out that [tag]Oasis[/tag], curently unsigned to any label, are considering following the same golden path as Radiohead and release future albums in the same manner.
English alt veterans The Charlatans are also giving away their next, yet untitled, eleventh album, completely free as a digital download. Alan McGee, the musical impresario behind Oasis and Charlatans, believes that the business model for selling music is moribund and that future income will largely come from ticket sales for live shows and merchandising.
“I thought, ‘well nobody buys CDs anyway’. If you talk to a 19-year-old kid, they don’t buy CDs. In eastern Europe, nobody buys a CD – everything is digitally downloaded from the internet for nothing. I came to the conclusion, ‘Why don’t we just give it away for nothing’.”
Also a few months back [tag]Prince[/tag] gave away an estimated three million copies of his latest album,”Planet Earth,” with The Mail on Sunday, driving ticket sales for his record-breaking series of concerts at London’s O2 Arena. Clearly giving away albums isn’t quite as crazy and foolish as people may think, many artists have had more benefits then actual downsides, but this seems to apply to well established bands and artists. What about the emerging, young and aspiring bands? I’ll leave you to ponder upon that.
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