archGFX

Cool, but not innovative

Rock should be less like a mall and more like a yard sale.

There's been a lot of pontificating about the new Radiohead album, and how it's hastening the demise of the recording industry. Largely because of Nine Inch Nails's announcement a few days later, and other bands jumping on the bandwagon immediately afterward. It's cool, that's for sure. The more the merrier. But the concept of setting your own price is something Jonah Matranga has been doing since onlinedrawing's jonahpster, and that you can still do in his current shop¹. Radiohead's success still depended, for a long time, on the music industry.

The death knell for the industry was 2005's CYHSY, who rose to sudden popularity based on a solid review from Said the Gramaphone, and sold hundreds of thousands of self-printed CD's without any assistance from a major label's marketing budget. Hailed as the next Arcade Fire, not so much because of their sound, but because of their lightening fast rise to popularity without wasting a lot of money.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy Radiohead (I Might Be Wrong is one of my favorite live albums), but their primary skill is following the right trends. Their fans are often oblivious to the aphex twin influences, or the truly independent bands that have paved their way.

Smart new artists aren't wasting their time trying to get noticed by labels. They know that the scene is moving. They're building myspace friends and selling shows in towns they've never been to. I get albums emailed from artists like Nato Caliph just because I have a blog. Nato is doing more to hasten the death of the RIAA by sidestepping the entire system, than Radiohead's little temper tantrum and to-be-released box set capitulation² .

1. base price ± what you feel it's worth (back ↩)
2. Radiohead has announced that they plan on signing a deal with a record label to release in_rainbows in physical form. It doesn't get much press because it doesn't sound quite so defiant. (back ↩)