my name is mwd

As Radiohead fans will have noted by the email announcement yesterday, and the others on the Today program this morning, Radiohead have a new album coming out, titled In Rainbows.

Why is the album in the news? Radiohead have decided to try and do the digital downloads thing by offering the album in two formats. Firstly there’s a traditional physical version which is two CDs – the album and some extra tracks – plus vinyl versions, plus some artwork, all together in a boxed set at that rather high price of £40, and out in December. The second offering is by download of just the main album, priced at however much you think it’s worth above £0.45. This will be available from October 10th.

As Dr Tridion might say, interesting.

I’m torn. I like digital download as a music format as CDs tend to be ripped and then sit on shelf taking up needless space. The idea of paying what I think it’s worth for the music for the digital download is an interesting, albeit potentially risky for the band, move. I’d probably pay around a tenner like I usually would as I like the band and am happy to reward them for their music. Though I guess in a logical extreme they should let me listen to the album and then pay what I think it’s worth. However, I guess then my motivation to pay is substantially reduced once I have the goods in hand – not that the music is any better or worse, I just think probably people will pay more for access to a good than to keep it. Perhaps there’s a question for the Undercover Economist.

I said I was torn didn’t I – back to the point. I’m torn as being a fan of most things Radiohead have committed to whatever your audio format of choice is, I want the extra songs that come on the physical version. But for that I have to pay substantially more – two CDs and a book of artwork etc. do add up in cost no doubt, but really mostly I want the music on the CDs. And really I’d have to buy both, as there’s a two month lag on the physical version, and as a music nut I wouldn’t want to wait that long.

Decisions, decisions.

I guess, though, it’s not a decision really. I can pay £0.46 for the new album now, and then the £40 when the physical version comes out. I fear however that that will skew the statistics for the experiment they’re surely running, which is to see what people will pay for digital downloads. Unfortunately for real experiments you need to display more control over the options than they’re giving me, so if that happens they’ve only themselves to blame.

Of course, this assumes the album is any good of course. But based on past performance, I feel safe in prediction it’ll be worth getting hold of.

Update: Neil has corrected me that the boxed set comes with the download option too. I guess there goes some cash then…