With the ghost of a smile on his face

Today, I caught myself reading through Pierre Schiffler’s blog. I was quite frankly shocked. Radiohead released a new album? Wait what? I realize that I have been somewhat distracted from my usual musical research of late, but I have difficulty seeing how I could have missed this. Yes Sufjan Steven’s Age of Adz went under my radar for a rather lengthy stretch, but this is Radiohead.

Thus as anyone thoroughly ashamed by his ignorance in such matters would do, I tracked down a number of articles detailing the release and the album. Not the most productive afternoon of my life, but rather interesting.

This most recent release was described as a natural progression from Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want online release of In Rainbows four years ago.

Pierre, in his post, effectively juxtaposes the remarkably limited marketing campaign with the album’s predictably meteoric rise on The Hype Machine, Last FM, and similar sites. However I disagree that the release strategy undertaken was a ‘bare minimum’ undertaking. Perhaps describing it as a less-is-more approach is more appropriate. Yes, limited promotion (just stopping short of saying nothing at all) was used; however this is perhaps more reflective of the album itself, the direction of the industry, and Radiohead’s general unpredictability, than anything else.

Although pushing the boundary, it appears to be more of an EP that a full album, Radiohead does not appear to be touring in support of the EP/Album, and the majority of Radiohead fans are likely to come into possession of the album via less-than-legal downloads regardless of release strategy. Interestingly, as Pierre himself mentions, the album’s online uproar appears to have outdone In Rainbows: even though critical reviews appear less favourable.

In brief, the traditional marketing and distribution platforms for music are increasingly compromised: especially when a dedicated fan base is particularly technologically savvy. By limiting the campaign, Radiohead focused on customers that will actually consider paying for the content. Radiohead’s strategy appears to extract value from fans willing to pay, while refraining from investing in individuals who are just going to download the album anyway – I won’t even mention buying a traditional CD from a record store, as demonstrated by this release strategy, an increasingly irrelevant platform.