in rainbows

album by: radiohead

release date: october 10, 2007

on the day of this album’s release Radiohead decided to market it in a way that was widely unpopular: pay what you want (PWYW). essentially, in order to buy/download the album, the customer would input their own price as to what they saw fit for the its purchase. their was no limit or minimum to however much money a person wanted to spend, often leading to people “purchasing” the album for no money at all. here is what the website looked like:

funnily enough, allowing fans to purchase in rainbows for free still did not reduce piracy rates. in fact, the album was downloaded from unauthorized sources at 10 times the rate of new releases from other top artists at the time. additionally, on file-sharing networks, 400,000 copies of in rainbows were swapped in a week, and, by the end of the month, the number was more than 2 million (npr music).

so that leaves the question: what was the purpose of selling this album through the PWYW purchasing method if it barely touched the amount of copies pirated? at the time, outside sources such as fellow artists and music critics had varying opinions, some believing that it was an important and powerful message to give the listener more input and control in the music they are purchasing, while others stated the band was setting a difficult standard for younger and newer bands to be able to financially support.

it is also important to mention that in rainbows was radiohead’s first album release without its previous record company, EMI. after the band’s world tour without the contractual obligation to make music, radiohead went on hiatus, creating a four-year gap between the release of their sixth album, amnesiac (also an amazing collection or music btw, I highly highly recommend you give it a listen) and in rainbows. overall, this puts more importance onto this specific release and leads me to believe that there was a good deal of thought that went into how the sell this album.

now my opinions: I think deciding to go with a PWYW purchase strategy was incredibly fascinating and influential. as one of the most-listened-to bands of the early 2000s, radiohead’s fanbase was huge, therefore increasing the impact of this choice. by allowing each individual to choose the price they believed the album deserved they enforced the idea that music cannot be set to a fixed price and the listening experience of each fan will differentiate how much value, both personal and monetary, the album will hold. this marketing choice gave the buyer more control over the music and, I believe, created an experience of listening and evaluating the album that took the form of a conversation with the artist instead of imposing a one-way transaction between the band and their fans. in rainbows therefore gained more personality and individuality based on whomever bought that copy of the album.

additionally, I think the personalization of the listening experience is yet another way radiohead characterizes themselves as revolutionary. although I’m sure the PWYW option was chosen by many artists before them, their popularity and influence opened the possibility up to many younger and newer creators who may follow in their footsteps.

ok here comes less interesting part: what’s in the album??

in rainbows can be categorized as alternative rock, depicting themes such as psychological terrors and fears while also playing on deep physical and emotional desires. Thom Yorke (radiohead’s lead vocalist) has stated that this album was his take on the concept of seduction songs, a series of portraits of lust and human desires that drive and control our actions (medium.com)

here is the track list — as you can see it’s one of my favorite radiohead albums (just about tied with ok computer and the bends). the tracks I like the absolute most are “jigsaw falling into place”, “weird fishes / arpeggi”, “all I need”, “nude”, and “reckoner”.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this album and found it just as interesting as I did! I always think its fun to learn something new about artists and their works after listening to them already for quite some time, it deepens my fascination and already positive opinions about the music as a whole.

<3,

blaire

also this post was inspired by this YouTube video, i 100% recommend watching it! (you have to click on “watch on YouTube” because I can’t figure out how to display it on here….)