Remember back when Radiohead allowed listeners to pay whatever they wanted for the In Rainbows album? That was pretty cool, right? Well, Robert Smith of the Cure disagrees. He told the following to Music Radar:
You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all and that's nonsense. If I put a value on my music and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan, it can't work.
What do you think of this? Is the pay-what-you-want tactic foolish? Or a cool idea?
Stella McCartney
Martick Jewellery
Blugirl
Robert Smith needs to go away.
1i think they're both missing the point... you generally need to attach some kind of price to what you've produced in order to compensate all the people involved in creating that, and by allowing people to pay just whatever they like.. it's not an automatically bad idea but you run the risk of going in debt from creating and distributing music... which sucks...
2but i quite disagree with what Robert Smith said as well. i'ts not about you assigning some sense of value or self-worth to what you've created... that just sounds arrogant to me, and i do think the listener is the only one who can truly attribute value to a work. but on a practical level... you need to charge people for that.
I think it can be a good idea and a bad one at that. If anything, yea pay what you what, but put down..I guess like a reserve. Like on ebay. Wont accept anything lower than a certain amount. This way, at least youre still getting something and listeners can still pay a price they think might be worthwhile. If you allow any price, some people could possibly take advantage and well that could be a bad idea.
3you guys are cheap.
its a bad idea
4I think if Radiohead makes music for the love of music and they want their fans to enjoy it for free or for an small amount of money, good for them.
5Thom Yorke is one of the few guys out there that still loves what he does, and that's why they still have such loyal fans.
In Rainbows was an epic album.
Radiohead can afford to do that, they have millions of fans that are willing to pay full price even if not required. But the small bands can't, most people would just take advantage of the offer.
6Agree 100% with Alesimas.
Robert Smith sounds terribly out-of-date. Did it really take him a year and a half to formulate an opinion on something that occurred in October 2007???
I think the debate may still be raging on at record companies, but for fans and many artists, we’ve all had our say on whether this matter – and I think Radiohead’s overwhelming success with In Rainbows is proof enough that this is the way of the future.
7Robert Is right, and Amloveaffair...he wont go away because millions of fans love his music, have since the late 70's early 80's!!!
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