Radiohead Retraction

Wow. Did I ever misjudge this band. I hereby take it back — almost everything I said about them a few weeks back.If you’re not following the Radiohead saga, several weeks ago, the band made news when they announced they would not sell their new album on iTunes because the store refuses to sell albums as albums, and instead requires artists to agree to sell at least a few tracks track-only, at $0.99 each.I still contend that shunning track-only sales is silly. But in the context of my hyperbole, I said I’d ignore the band entirely as a result. Then, I went on trying to ignore them.I tried hard.A week later, the band announced that, free from their label constraints, they chose to release their latest work on their website with — get this — flexible pricing. That’s right: you get to pay Radiohead exactly what you think their album is worth.And then, they went from obscurity in the media world of fifth+main to the role of media hero. I did download the album, in fact, and I paid absolutely nothing for it. I chose to take advantage of the kindness of the band and gave them a big fat goose egg. Then I listened to it.And I went back and gave them twenty bucks.Now, others are following in Radiohead’s lead. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor had this to say:

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.

Telegraph UK notes the Oasis and Jamiroquai are coming along too, which would be a perfectly right thing to do, since — huh? Jamiroquai? Where the hell has that guy been the last decade and a half?This is the next most beautiful extension of the user centered media market. The labels have created a firestorm of controversy around file sharing when the upshot is simply this: users want a relationship with their content creators. They want a personal and meaningful relationship, and a fiduciary one, too. They want to know that the content creators they follow are living off the fruits of their labors, that fans have contributed to the success of their favorite acts, authors, artists.Labels have become the electoral college of the consumer relationship. As we’re seeing in the political sphere, it just might turn out that the proxy vote doesn’t actually work as well as it used to, that the labels don’t actually know what I like and would spend my money to support, and that in fact, artists are served better by dealing directly with the populace.