January 29th, 2010
In Rainbows Rant
I hate when people use Radiohead‘s In Rainbows online release as an example of new music industry models. Radiohead is a product of the old major label system. The system that, for years, understood how to take unknown artists and turn them into superstars. Radiohead was priority one at Capitol Records where they had the marketing, team and of course the talent to get them to the top. As for In Rainbows, because they were the first big artist to do the “name your own price” they also generated mainstream press and PR beyond any exposure they could have purchased. Finally, their manager said “This was a solution to a series of issues, I doubt it would work the same way ever again.”
It’s kind of like startups all comparing themselves to Facebook and Twitter. These companies are aberrations. And while we should follow and understand how they’ve been able to thrive, trying to apply their lessons to every online startup is often useless.