BEIJING,
Oct. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Radiohead on Wednesday made its latest album, "In
Rainbows," available online for download, with fans allowed to set their own
prices for it.
Without a record label contract (Radiohead's long
term deal with Capitol Records concluded with 2003's "Hail to the Thief"), the
band decided to sell the album exclusively through the website and let fans
choose their price, from one cent to infinite.
The decision has sent shock waves through the music
industry, with some hailing it a brave vision for the digital age and others
predicting the end of the world as we know it.
"We're prepared to take a risk and we might come out
looking very foolish. But we believe if your music is great, then people will
pay for it," said Bryce Edge, one of the band's managers.
The British alternative rock band is not revealing
how many people have ordered the album or what they agree to pay.
However, Billboard and other music trade sources say
tens of thousands of downloads have gone ahead -- and after some initial
heavy traffic, the process appears glitch-free.
In the brief lead-up, fans had energetically debated
what the proper price should be for the new album.
The consensus appeared to hold that "In Rainbows" was
not necessary a classic like "OK Computer" or as visionary as "Kid A," but was
nevertheless a very good, relatively mellow album.
Some downloaders are complaining about the bit rate
for "In Rainbows." The MP3s are being distributed at 160 kbps, a quality lower
than the threshold set by many peer-to-peer sites like BitTorrent, which
mandates files be encoded at 192 kbps.
The move has already had its imitators. Wednesday, it
was reported that the Grammy-award winning U.S. band Nine Inch Nails was also
considering releasing it next album over the Internet. Oasis, the Charlatans and
Ash have already indicated that their next work will be heard first on the
Internet.
(Agencies)
