Radiohead finally told us how much In Rainbows made online. They allowed fans to decide how much they wanted to pay. Most of them downloaded it for free but it still sold 3 million albums. They sold a hundred thousand box sets at 80 bucks a pop--8 million dollars just for that!

This tells me that Prince is full of shit. As long as you provide great music people will buy it.

Prince.

2freaky4church1 said:

That doesn't correlate.

2freaky4church1 said:

Yes!
A Radiohead thread. Anyway, great news. Big Ups guys.
In Rainbows was worth all the hype. Period.
Best? Prolly not. Great? Yes.

Cool.

http://www.nme.com/news/radiohead/40444
Radiohead reveal how successful 'In Rainbows' download really was
Radiohead
Facts for pay-what-you-want release finally made public

The statistics behind the pay-what-you-like release of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' album, released on October 10 last year online, have been revealed today (October 15).

According to reports most fans chose to pay nothing to download the album. However, it still generated more money before it was physically released (on December 31) than the total money generated by sales of the band's previous album, 2003's 'Hail To The Thief'.

According to Music Ally, Jane Dyball, head of business affairs at Warner Chappell (the publishing company that oversaw the release of 'In Rainbows'), refused to reveal the average price people were downloading the album for.

However, Dyball, set to speak about the release at the Iceland Airwaves conference later, explained that Warner Chappell and Radiohead's management were monitoring the average price daily, and was prepared to cancel the download facility if the average price became too low.

The download facility was taken down after three months, and the album went to Number One in the UK and USA after being physically released.

Statistics revealed that most fans downloaded the album through file-sharing service BitTorrent, but that this had been anticipated before the release.

The band sold 100,000 copies of the 'In Rainbows' box set, which contained extra songs not available on the standard download or CD release.

Warner Chappell concluded that the new release style was a financial success, but did not reveal whether Radiohead plan to release an album in a similar way in the future.

http://www.rollingstone.c...s-numbers/
Radiohead Publishers Reveal “In Rainbows” Numbers

A year after its release sent shock waves through the music industry, the publisher of Radiohead’s In Rainbows has finally revealed some details about the success of the “pay-what-you-want” experiment. While exact figures have not yet been released, Warner Chappell confirmed that “Radiohead made more money before In Rainbows was physically released than they made in total on the previous album Hail To the Thief,” Music Ally reports. In all, there have been three million purchases of In Rainbows (including CDs, vinyls, box sets and digital sales) since the band began selling the album officially on New Year’s Day 2008. Warner Chappell didn’t reveal how much the band actually made total in the “pay-what-you-want” facet, but admitted more people downloaded the album for free than paid for it. Still, the three million in total sales — 100,000 of which came from the $80 box sets — is a hugely-successful number considering the album was both given away for free and that it was actually downloaded more times via Bit Torrent than free and legally through Radiohead’s own site.

Doesn't mean that the same people didn't decide to actually later buy it. Guilt

http://www.gigwise.com/ne...ales-Stats

Radiohead Unveil Impressive 'In Rainbows' Sales Stats
They are published for the first time...

The first official set of sales statistics for Radiohead's pioneering album 'In Rainbows' will be revealed later today (October 15th).

Warner Chappell, the publishing company who controlled all digital rights for the album on behalf of the band, are due to address a conference at the Iceland Airwaves Festival.

They are expected to announce that the album, originally made available for fans in October 2007 via an online honesty-box, earned more money before its physical release in December 2007 than Radiohead's 2003 predecessor 'Hail To The Thief' did in total.

Radiohead became the first band to allow music fans to name how much they paid for an album 'In Rainbows'.

Although Gigwise understands 1.2million copies of the record were downloaded in the opening day, today's report, previewed by Music Ally, doesn't specify the total sales, nor does it reveal the average price people paid for the album.

However, Jane Dyball, head of business affairs at Warner Chappell, will tell the conference later that the band's management company monitored the album's digital release daily, and were prepared the end the honesty box if the average price fell to low.

According to some reports, most fans still downloaded the album via BiTorrent websites.

It also states that Radiohead sold 100,000 copies of the special 'In Rainbows' box set. The album's physical release has so far sold 1.2million copies worldwide.
Stay tuned to Gigwise for all the latest information on the full report.


Interesting...

Do you know much Prince made with the Planet Earth CD giveaway, how many he sold 2freaky4church? Was the giveaway a profitable success?

2freaky4church1 said:

I remember downloading In Rainbows for free, then buying the CD.


That's generally what I have been doing... previewing a leak or whatever copy shows up online FIRST (and it is always online first), then deciding if I want the CD, or vinyl.

I think the biggest testament is not how many people downloaded the record. Its how many did it sell later on when it came out, i think this turned alot of veteran artists heads that have followings, i mean why would you even need a label.

In a smaller scale the Keyboard/piano/vocalist for a-ha Magne Furuholmen did this same thing. He put 6 six tracks up for free on his myspace for about 2 weeks, then pulled them. Organized a indie deal to distribute the album for him and he got about 50% of the money, but he also designed 300 special edition vinyl-art cover cd/albums that were numbered, signed and also all covers were different so you really got something special, he sold that for about 100 dollars and they all sold day one. So all in all he made about 150-200,000 dollars, for an album that probably no one outside of diehards heard, there was no "spotlight" "no chart action" but one of the best albums this year and the decade

The in rainbow album benifited 4 being the first one and the amount of publicity of the event let it to be such a success. But radioheads or any other act wont get this kinda free publicity again.
same thing happened with the prince give away of the CD as a cover mount and the resulting publicity was a huge success. But no one has had as much success since then.
same thing with sir Paul and starbucks. Its hard to repeat the success becoz u creat so much publicity and buzz

One thing that has had consistence success however r the walmart exclusives
mainly coz walmart does a hell of a job promoting the album since its making a huge profit of $7/CD they have a huge incentive to make it succeed
[Edited 11/30/08 12:24pm]

asg said:

But the thing is that if you have the "base" following you dont need a label at all. If you are an artist that has a following, and also has the ability and "desire" to just put stuff out on your own, or to do the grass roots work then its nothing but a pay day. It can be done, it doesnt always have to net millions, and trust me little bands and most artists are NOT making millions with or without labels, its about making the music you want and getting the money thats yours, so soundscan and those things are meaningless

and we cant measure "success" in terms of a chart, especially now. I mean there are artists that dont even chart making more money than the rihannas of the world because they keep what they make flat out, there are "rap video girls" that get paid more money than the actual rappers whose videos theyre in.
[Edited 11/30/08 12:27pm]

Record sales is not where the money is at. Maybe $8mil for radioheads is alot of money but for prince thats chump change.
Record companies do play an important role of course they will take most of the money from record sales but they make u famous.

Its likely that prince would be making more money right now had he remained at WB and would have generated more hits in the process.U have to look at the bigger picture.And WB is more motivated to promote prince then other labels becoz they benefit from catalog sales too
[Edited 11/30/08 12:57pm]

asg said:

I gotta disagree on that, Prince would not be making money at a label for his "music" at this point in his career, theres just no way. Prince was a done deal in terms of hits come 1993, the mainstream and thinking was changing, the mainstream for the most part cant deal with that much of an artist of that long a time. Prince would only be making money on touring, which is how it is now, however his little deals here and there do make him money, and things like Emancipation and the Rainbow Children and even the awful New Power Soul netted him more cash than "hits". Also there is two different things now, you have musician/artists or you have media stars. Most fall into the category of Media stars and they need the push, because if they had to put shit out on their own, they would be gone. Labels "can" get you noticed, but there is a time when they are useless to you depending where and what you wanna do, Prince was done come 1993. He had ideas that NO LABEL would bankroll, which is why most of the "125 million" that he signed for was lost, taken back, and never made it to his bank. By the time he left WB in 1996 he was given approx 20 million for the work done between 1993-1996 not the 125 million we think he got.

In a related note.

http://www.wowow.co.jp/mu...d/special/

160 kbps album.. i surely hope no'one paid too much..



i can see the box set being worth it

carl thanks for that clip

i tried to go to that show here in japan but couldn't