I think Jeff’s being a bit harsh on Trent but I don’t slavishly read every NIN interview created so I wouldn’t really know much about his personality xD (although I wouldn’t presume to know it if I DID read all his interviews ;).

I think he made an accurate assessment of the Radiohead situation and wasn’t as derogatory as some have been.

Thanks. If my blog ends up getting cocky I hope readers would point that out.

In this case, however, I don’t see any correlation between “here’s what I like best”, and “this was my role”. You read more into it than I wrote. I specifically mentioned that Trent didn’t read my blog; which clearly means I played no role whatsoever. I have no illusions about that.

But I don’t write in a vacuum. If I mention something in the early days — my comment for Trent was written even before I believed Radiohead deliberately pushed low quality wares — and it somehow comes to pass, what is wrong with mentioning it? To do so and claim credit would be wrong, but I didn’t do that.

Otherwise, interesting.

Come back and comment on this blog any time you like. Debate is a Good Thing. :)

But like I said…I do agree with the gist of what you’re saying. I guess we differ mostly on the reaction.

I’m not saying i agree with them. Most of my music is at 192k or higher or has been re-ripped to be at that quality. I do think they had an actual physical CD release in mind when they did this “experiment” but I think they really just did it mostly on a whim after they couldn’t get a satisfactory deal with EMI. They figured they’d see if it would work without EMI’s help….and I really doubt they expected it to be nearly as big a deal as it became. (I mean..it became a HUGE deal.)

But yes, I guess we shall agree to disagree on this…I don’t disagree that it was messed up though. (I may not think it was as messed up as you do though.) I think I’ve just seen it in a way that allows me to be more forgiving of them.

Thanks for the detailed thoughts. They’re appreciated, though we tend to disagree on this issue.

I’m not sure servers being bogged down over peak demand means failure. After all, you don’t setup for the absolute peaks.

I would like to point out that I like “In Rainbows” quite a bit, better than their last two albums at least. The quality of the actual work, however, is not the issue.

I disagree that they didn’t set themselves to be something special, or were just trying to see “what happens”. They deliberately avoided iTunes and other sales of singles, and when they finally did their own album-only download, it was WORSE than the very methods they disparaged. It is clear they didn’t hate the iTunes model, they simply hated the DOWNLOAD model.

What other conclusion can be drawn when, even after being called on it by a few sites, they did NOTHING to rectify the situation? It would have been trivial to setup another zip file of, say, 256K MP3 files and an album cover for people to download. But they did no such thing, instead killing the download option entirely right on schedule. They established a sub-standard download product, and even then yanked it away when the CD became available. Their intent was clear, and any other reading of those facts seems to be giving them far more of a pass then they deserve. Again, if the labels had done this I don’t think people would have taken it so lightly.

You shifted your view as looking at the sub-standard product as a “glorified and generous” preview; my point is had they been honest with us and made it clear that’s what it was (as NIN is doing on Piratebay) then I’d have no beef. I also would not have paid for it, because in my view previews should be free.

As for the decision business-wise, since it’s more in line with the labels’ way of thinking about file downloading you can imagine what I think about it. “Shrewd, cool” business moves do NOT require misleading statements and sub-standard quality. They’ll get no free pass from me on this.

With that said, I think Radiohead are getting more criticism than they deserve in this post (and the previous ones related to this). I don’t think they were ever setting out to revolutionize anything. The media built all that up around them. They were just seeing what happens. Maybe being not up front about it was a bit messed up. I only paid 5 bucks but I was still pretty disappointed with the 160kbps quality. But after thinking about it — and the whole bait-and-switch aspect — I still could not think of what Radiohead did as bad…or even “not awesome.”

I wrote a mostly positive post about the album shortly after its release and one of my visitors posted a comment that ran along similar lines as what you’re saying. This was my response then:

“I do think that at least part of this was specifically designed to get people to either buy the disc box set or the cd when it is “officially” released as an actual cd. It is a business too after all.

But I don’t mind at all for the so-called “ulterior” motives because, ulterior motives or not, I see it as Radiohead basically made an album available to us (albeit in somewhat low quality) several months before it was set to come out. I now look at it as a glorified and generous preview anyway (think: iTunes 30 second sample but 52.47 times better). There’s a whole other half of the album that is still yet to be released! (the 8 “bonus” tracks that are included in the disc box set)

To sum up, I think it was a smart move both business-wise, and band/fan relationship-wise.”

The album was not really set to be released for several more months. And the only reason why it wasn’t released was because the major labels weren’t budging on their demands to the band — so a contract couldn’t be agreed upon. So Radiohead just came up with something on the fly and decided to just put it out there. Yeah…maybe it was a little messed up of them to not disclose the quality of the downloads. But I think it was at least as much “rookie mistake” as shrewd, cold business move.