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London Loves tonite!

Woo yay! It's tonite!

Saturday 6 October at the Albany.

240 Great Portland Street. Opposite Great Portland Street Underground station (Map)

8pm-2am. Entry £3.

Nearest station Great Portland Street.

Be there or be square etc etc

posted Saturday, October 06, 2007 | 0 comments | links

 

Radiohead in 'you decide what our music is worth' shocker

Hello everyone! James here. I have now given up all pretence of having the time to update this website with music reviews and features and stuff - so I thought I'd write the occasional ranty blog-style entry on this news page from time to time. I can't promise that I'll keep it updated, but I can promise that I'll try. Which is a massive cop-out, isn't it? I'll try my best. There, that's slightly less of a cop-out.

So, what do you think about punters being able to choose how much they want to pay to download the new Radiohead album*? This news, coupled with The Charlatans announcing that they're going to give away their new single for free (mainly to remind people that they still exist) can perhaps be taken as a tacit acknowledgement that bands nowadays can only really make their money through touring - that the downloadable horse has already bolted, so one might as well open the downloadable stable door.

This could herald a new era by creating a special contract of trust between band and fan, like those 'if you're in a hurry' boxes to pay for the paper at WH Smith. After all, how many times in the past have you splashed out 12 quid or so on an album only to discover it is actually a bit crap, but spend ages and ages listening to it and trying to 'get into' it in a futile attempt to convince yourself and your friends that you haven't wasted your time and money?**

You can pay as little as 1p to download the new Radiohead album - but how can you possibly know how much it's worth before you've even listened to it? I think a better idea would be to charge punters a standard rate of, say, 2 quid up front, then getting them to pay more if they like it then pay less if they suddenly realise it's shit. You get to keep an account open with - in this instance - cheery Oxford pop scamps Radiohead, with the opportunity to give them money or take money away depending on how irritating you are finding their 'difficult' and 'challenging' new material at that particular time.

This band-fan contract could even be extented to cover a band's entire career. Say you're sitting in a cafe, minding your own business, when'Creep' comes on the radio. Understandably you go ARRRGH THAT SONG IS SO ANNOYING STOP WHINING YOU TWAT, and rather than feeling aggrieved you can simply take 10 quid from Radiohead for the emotional damage caused. Then, say, later on you're sat at work and someone sends you a link of them doing 'No Surprises' on later... with Jools Holland, and you realise 'awww man, they were really quite good about ten or so years ago', and give them 40p back.

It's the perfect system, apart from the way that it would make all bands and record labels go bankrupt.



* Interestingly, Radiohead still offer you the option to pay for an old-skool, hard, physical copy of the album instead. A mighty 40 quid, in fact, for a no-doubt adoringly packaged collection of CDs and bits of vinyl, covered with clever (vague) references to George Bush and how war is bad and so forth.

** When was the last time you listened to that second Badly Drawn Boy album? Or Kid A? Or Six by Mansun? Actually, Six by Mansun's great.

P.S. London Loves is on Saturday. Thought I should shoehorn that in.

posted Thursday, October 04, 2007 | 0 comments | links