1. Radiohead are an award-winning band from Oxford, UK who have released 8 albums and are known for their experimental and innovative music and marketing. 2. With their 2007 album "In Rainbows", Radiohead pioneered a "pay what you want" model for digital sales that highlighted the importance of the fan-artist relationship while also responding to piracy threats. 3. Radiohead's subsequent albums "King of Limbs" and other works demonstrated their self-released and digital-first approach to distribution and promotion, including streaming performances online.

2. History and Context
• Radiohead are a multi award winning band from Oxford, UK.
• Radiohead have released 8 albums. King of Limbs being their latest.
• King of Limbs was released in February 2011.
• Radiohead music and marketing is considered experimental,
progressive and innovative.

4. Radiohead have created debate and stimulated further industry
thought regarding innovative ways to sell albums in a digital age.
Industry importance
The “pay what you want”
approach highlighted the
importance of the fan-musician
relationship to profit.
In Rainbows 2007

5. Was this a totally generous approach, a thank you to fans? Or a
clever response to the increasing threat of piracy to the industry?
Radiohead used digital technology to move away from a reliance
on powerful record labels to release, promote and distribute
albums.
Industry importance
400,000 copies of 'In Rainbows'
were downloaded on BitTorrent on
its day of release alone. Over its first
24 days, the album notched up 2.3m
torrent downloads.
Did PWYW solve the piracy issue?
Was the PWYW idea a failure?

6. Industry importance
"In terms of digital
income, we’ve made
more money out of
this record than out
of all the other
Radiohead albums
put together”
Radiohead used digital technology to increase financial gain.
“We sell less records
but make more
money”

7. Industry importance
Radiohead used digital technology for an increased financial gain.
The album has been purchased 3m times, including downloads,
CDs and the £40 Discboxes. 100,000 Discboxes were sold
resulting in a cool £4m in gross revenues from the latter alone.
Another sales strategy the band learnt from In Rainbows is to provide
variety in format.

8. Industry importance
Interestingly even after the album had been available for free for
3 months, when it was physically released in the UK and the US
it debuted at number one in the charts.

9. Digital technology and release
It could be argued the In Rainbows PWYW idea was a huge success
because of the huge attention it gained but not just financially.
This resulted in “free advertising” in magazines, webpages and even
the national news.

11. Digital technology and release
To promote and to generate a buzz for King of Limbs, Radiohead
published the music video for “Lotus Flower” on their blog “Dead
Air Space” just before the release.

12. Radiohead self released King of Limbs and initially, the only way
to legally purchase the album was via the bands website. The
album sold an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 copies through
Radiohead's website.
Digital technology and release
Downloads were priced at £6
for MP3 and £9 for WAV

13. The King of Limbs self-released on 18th February 2011 was
followed by the physical CD and 12" vinyl releases on 28 March,
again only by the bands website.
Digital technology and release
When this method began to slow down a wider digital release
occurred via AWAL, accompanied by a special limited edition
"newspaper" edition on 9 May 2011.

14. Digital technology and release
Radiohead hired AWAL, a digital distribution company
to manage their digital placement within mainstream
platforms. Question why?

15. Digital technology and release
Radiohead prolonged and continued to promote the release of
King of Limbs by releasing “Live from the Basement” a live show
of the band playing the whole album. This was aired on various
TV channels across the world and was later available to purchase
on DVD.

16. Digital technology and release
The BBC purchased the rights to internationally, digitally distribute
the performance.

17. Digital technology
Radiohead have an official YouTube channel that hosts live and
album tracks and gives the audience the chance to stream content free
of charge. The channel has 293.000 subscribers.

18. Digital technology
Data collected by Spotify states musicians album sales increase if
their music is available to stream online for free.
The company said it pays an
average of $0.007 per play.
Spotify said it had paid more than
$1bn (£612m) in royalties since its
2008 launch.
Remember record labels and digital
distributors will take their cut
before the musicians see any money.

19. Digital technology
Earlier this year Radiohead singer Thom Yorke pulled his solo
material from the site in protest at how much it pays artists.
"Make no mistake new artists you
discover on #Spotify will not get
paid," he continued on Twitter.
"Meanwhile shareholders will
shortly being rolling in it"
Spotify want artists to concentrate on the
promotion and accumulative earnings
alongside plays leading to sales elsewhere,
rather than simply pays per play. Also unlike
buying a CD or download, streaming is not a
one-off payment. It can provide long term
income.

20. • If your song is on Radio 2 as an A-level artist for 3 minutes you
earn £120. A label will usually take 50% of this.
• Radio 2 is judged to have around 14 million listeners a week.
• If you do the maths of £120 divided by the beleived 0.5 million
listeners in peak times. The artist is actually getting paid 0.024p
per play per listener.
• Thom Yorke moaned “To give you an example, 4,685 Spotify
plays of my last solo album equated to £19.22”
• This would equal 0.04p per play per listener.
• On this logic (which could be flawed) Spotify earn artists more
than Radioplay.
Digital technology

21. Industry importance - Summary
1.Changing the mind-set on music's distribution, sales techniques
and the importance of the record company to bands
2.Bringing niche, experimental and progressive music to the
mainstream platform.
3.Standing up and causing debate against new technologies that
they feel are financial biased towards the platforms shareholders
rather than the artist.

22. Industry importance – Digital Technology
1.Cusing digital technology to self release albums. Lessening the
importance of a record label.
2. The use of their website to host a live performance of the band
playing the album which was alter available to own on DVD.
3.The use of Youtube and Twitter accounts to create a fan-band
relationship which is proved to increase sales.
4. The use of Youtube and Spotify to allow their music to be
streamed for free which is proved to increase sales.
5. The use of their own website to release a music video for Lotus
Flower, prior to King of Limbs to promote the album.

23. Compare and contrast how Nirvana and Radiohead have used
digital technology.
Remember your points should be reinforced by context, facts, figures
and examples.
Question