Radiohead is making the stems to Nude (off their In Rainbows album) available for download on iTunes. Purchase the stems before April 8th and Apple will throw in an accompanying GarageBand file for the track.
Ironically, while the song itself is 99 cents, the 5 stems are also 99 cents each! How is it that the sum of the parts (the song) is less expensive than the individual parts packaged separately? And why do they charge for remix stems to begin with? Shouldn’t they be giving these away for free in hopes that people will create the next genius remix, thus creating free hype and buzz for the band?
Don’t get me wrong — I applaud bands like Radiohead that are willing to experiment with new distribution and pricing models for their music. I just think that charging $5 for the stems to a single track is a bit greedy, especially if the point is to galvanize some sort of fan remix effort. In the end, I feel like this is just another effort to squeeze more money out of an album at the expense of their most dedicated fan base.
Anyways, I’ll stop my bitching and conclude on a positive note: the tracks aren’t wrapped in DRM and instead distributed in iTunes Plus format (256 kbps AAC encoding, no DRM). They got that part right at least!
8 Comments
Imagine the worst case scenario - it’s down right evil
http://blog.emxr.com/2008/04/radiohead-disappoints-remixers.html
Man, I didn’t realize it was that shady! You are right … down-right evil…
There are enough bands out there that give away pellas for remixing that people should never have to pay for them.
Nine Inch Nails just got a ton of free web promotion over their hassle with their label over the label not wanting to do the whole remix site thing, so Trent put on his whole knight in shining armor deal and launched the site anyway. Personally I think the whole idea was a huge marketing gimmick, but it’s still cool that people are having fun with it.
Beastie Boys, 32 pellas, free
Jay-Z American Gangster Acappellas $13.99, Not free, but not expensive either.
Agreed.
CCMixter is a great place to check out, too:
http://www.ccmixter.org/
this one is my favorite!
http://www.radioheadremix.com/remix/?id=1585
well i really enjoyed remixing nude, and i’m glad they did that.
you can listen to my remix here (vote if you like it):
http://julianberg.com/nude.php
enjoy
please take a moment to listen to the Brael remix of Nude. You will not regret it. Thanks
http://www.radioheadremix.com/remix/?id=562
Very nice, Aok, Julian, Brael! Impressive stuff.
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