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definitely worth my £3

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I paid 8£ but they fed us so well when Low was on tour with them that I didn't mind.

Listening now!


I've been through it twice. I was bored twice. Then again, I paid nothing for it, so no harm, no foul.

(Note to musicians/songwriters: "mature" is a death knell.)


i'm curious about how much people plan to pay for this. starfire says 8£ and zac says zero dollars ... anyone else?


i paid 3£ which comes out to around 6 greenbacks. i've downloaded my share of free stuff off of torrents sites but i paid for radiohead because i believe in what they are doing. they are changing the way we get music and attempting to prove to the music industry that it can work.

for example, a favorite band of mine is the legendary shack shakers. they just put a new album out. the cd costs around 12 bucks. i was hesitant to buy it because i listen to everything digitally and buying a cd seems like such a waste to me because it will just go sit in a box in a closet. i understand some people's love of album art so i'm not saying buying a cd is bad, just a waste for me. and i can't buy things on itunes because i don't use an ipod, i use my walkman phone. luckily, LSS also put their album up on amazon for download with no DRM crap on it. and the entire download (w/ digital artwork) only cost me 6 bucks.

i think local bands need to do the same. yeah, i'm happy you put all this work into designing the cd case, but all i want is the music. give me the option to buy the songs digitally and i have my paypal in my digital fingers ready to go.


yikes, i wonder if most people feel this way. cars & trucks have been working hard to come up with unique packaging for our album, and if a fan of the arts like neal doesn't care, that worries me.

although i think it will be on itunes for those who don't value the tactile experience as much.

me, i like holding a booklet, looking at pictures and reading liner notes and lyrics. and the smell of a new album can be really great. like new baseball cards.


I'm with tony...

i like the innovation of what Radiohead's trying to do but...

I like the art...I like the liner notes...cracking the cellophane with my thumbnail and lifting off the cover of a brand new jewel case to remove that annoying as hell label sticker they put over the top of the case...

..and then there's all the nifty stuff you get along with...a special edition Mr. Beast or Guero or We Were Dead Before The Ship Sank...

technologically, i seem to be stuck somewhere between the mid sixties and late nineties. i don't do ipod, i JUST started getting into internet radio (last.fm, and streaming WELY)...


alright mr. bennet. you indirectly attacked my love for the arts. i throw down my gauntlet good sir.

i love the special editions and really miss the days when bands would put out special edition 5 song eps with bonus tracks and remixes. don't get me wrong, i also like cover art too. it's just that i'm not playing cd's anymore. it's all going into my computer and going on my mp3 player. when i had a huge cd collection, i would love to sit and flip through the cases while popping the discs into my (ridiculously huge) 5 disc changer. i don't do that anymore. in fact, the only cd player i have anymore is the drive on my computer.

i'm not telling bands to stop making cover art and cd cases. i'm saying to provide another option.

i wonder if you put dames songs up for sale on the myspace page if people would pay to download them?


I say do both! I bought the Radiohead album digitally but I am also tempted to buy the real thing which comes with vinyl/cd's/dvd's plus other bonuses.

I mostly listen to music off my iPod and computer but I like having the backup when said harddrives fail.


for me, i only want to give a band my money once for an album, though, and that will be for the CD. i can rip that and put it on my ipod if i want to carry it around.

of course, i still don't think an ipod sounds as good as a CD, even at high quality, so i still listen to my purchases on my CD walkman. when i listen to a downloaded pre-release of something on the ipod and then switch to the store-bought copy on CD, the difference can be striking.

but i realize that i'm in the minority, here, and that most people don't give a shit.


i totally agree with you on that. so does radiohead. if you pre-buy the cd set, you get the download included.

i don't notice the different between mp3 and regular cd but then again, music isn't my primary art. i don't have the ear that you have. ask me about an actor or director's abilities though and i'll talk you to death.

i do notice the difference between a really nice record setup and a cd and i prefer the former. something about an analog recording that sounds so much richer than a cd.


I also opt for both choices. All my music is on hard drive, and about 70% is on CD as well. But, as much as I love records and to a lesser extent CDs I also see the future where CDs will be printed less and less. In fact I think digital is the only way to go if the big record companies hope to stand a chance of surviving, and they have to do so quickly. DRM is being eroded away (YAY) from multiple sources (Yahoo, Amazon, Itunes, Microsoft...) and frankly digital files are cheaper to distribute by far. I love the Electric Fetus, but all the music they have in there could be held in one pop machine sized device. Combine that with USB ports to plug in your mp3 player, a internet connection to retrieve daily downloads, and a receptacle to inset money/debt cards and suddenly you have a whole new paradigm. Make the songs cheap enough so that buying them isn't that big a deal and you'll end up with increased distribution, increased profits and less worry about pirating.


Here's my 2 cents....

those of you who use mp3s know that you can rip them from the cd..... so why should musician s (especially local) provide you with a second option (i.e. mp3 downloading, itunes, etc)? Added convenience?

If you ask me, it's like saying to a painter, hey I'd like your art, but could you make it a jpeg so I can download it?

and as for making tunes cheaper so downloading them isn't a big deal..... aren't musicians (again, especially local) underappreciated enough as it is?


Why should artists provide second options? Why don't you take it a step further: why should they provide any options at all?

If your goal is to make something for yourself, not to be heard/read/experienced by anyone other than yourself, then by all means make it as difficult as possible. Here's a good idea, why don't you charge people to get into your bedroom because that's the only place that you're allowing your underappreciated music/paintings/words/play to be heard/seen/read/scene(?).

Just don't be too shocked when the line to get in doesn't wrap around the block.

However, if you are an artist who wishes to share your art with as many people as possible so that they may experience whatever it is that you create, it kind of behooves you to GET IT OUT THERE by all possible avenues (yep, even by your bitty, overworked and underappreciated OWN self).

And, if that painter handed me a disc with a bunch of JPEGS of his paintings on it after I snarkily asked him for JPEGS, I'd sheepishly take the disc, shove it in my pocket, go grab a beer, and ruminate on how savvy that artist is (heck, the disc might even point the user in the direction of a website, where that artist has a portfolio of all his work, that I can see(!) and maybe, just maybe even buy (!!), whereby said artist might, just might even be able to make his rent payment).


The Supertacks are looking into doing our next release (almost) completely digital and online. At first I didn't like the idea, but it makes financial sense. Cheaper to print up a whole bunch of little cards with the info on it and do it like Radiohead and just hope some people pass the hat. The biggest cost in doing a disc is the reproduction and printing, might as well just remove that cost.

As far as buying current music I do the Zune Pass thing. Sure you don't get a copy to "keep" but it only costs the price of a single CD a month, my wife and I can share the account on our players, and we used to spend way more than that a month for music anyways. It's great to download a bunch of stuff, take a chance on it, and not feel bad about getting rid of it. Plus I like the fact it's legal.


I really wish I could get more info on my iPod, like songwriter credits, producers, who's playing on a track and all of that. One big reason I still go for CDs.


funk342, those are legit questions, I think Mark answered some of it pretty well. I think I'll take a stab at the art one as it sort of relates to part of my life.
there is a small difference is how both are consumed (and made), music is primarily listened to, you pop it on your mp3 player or put the disc in, listen on the headphones or over the stereo. That is the primary experience (if you don't go see it live)and generally you try and maximize or at least have a level-of-acceptance experience/threshold. We listen to music, but we generally don't accept music at 64kps in mono on one speaker. Art is looked at, the primary experience is visual, most consumers of fine art want to be able to look at it all the time, or use it to decorate/accentuate a space. This is a different experience then recorded music. And yes you could just have a jpg file, but that is akin (imo) to the 64kps mono experience, it is below the threshold of acceptability for those who want to have that piece of art. The avialibilty of posters and cheaper reproductions allows for wider distribution, and those may well be the mp3 equivalent but there are numerous ways in which the comparison of the two is problematic, so I'll leave it there.

magus, thats all very possible, it wouldn't be that hard for the information to be encoded on the track, and for mp3 players to be able to read it and display. I wouldn't be too surprised if it eventually becomes the norm.


Point taken, Mark, but that all has to do with promotion.

Mp3s are a great tool. No denying that, but as far as it becoming the standard medium for music, I'm not a fan. I'd hate to see musicians being forces to use that medium in order to be successful. My canvas to jpeg comparison was meant to compare cd's (packaging and all) to mp3s. While digital technology my be a good way to distribute and promote, in my opinion it can hurt the presentation of the art.

and make no mistake, I am by no means some self-loathing local musician bitter that no one like my music. My "underappreciated" comment was in regards to a previous post about "making mp3s cheat enough so that buying them is no big deal".


should be "cheap" not "cheat" in the last post.


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