Bye, Bye Big Labels?
October 10, 2007
This last week and a half has seen a flurry of bands touting their intentions to go it alone and release their new music sans record labels.
It all started with Radiohead‘s announcement on Oct. 1 that they would release their new album, In Rainbows, on their website, radiohead.com, and the biggest surprise was that they were allowing listeners to set their own price.
While a traditional album release is in the bands plans, they decided to offer up their new album (which has been completed since June) for however much anyone wants to pay.
Radiohead isn’t the first band to release an album online ahead of its traditional release date. Stars, an indie-pop group from Canada (that features members from Broken Social Scene), released their new album In Our Bedroom After the War on July 10, over three months before it’s store release of Sept. 25.
Stars said on their official website that they offered the early iTunes release because a leak of the album before the Sept. 25 date was inevitable.
But, Radiohead made the bigger headlines with their plan to let listeners name their own price.
Following Radiohead’s Oct. 1 announcement, there are rumors of Oasis planning on doing the same.
Nine Inch Nails, now free of their record label, seem on the verge of making a similar move.
Barely any mainstream news sites reported on these bold moves in the past week, with CNN.com running a brief article on it with reader feedback today.
