The future of the music industry?

Radiohead has a new album coming out October 10th. It's their first album in a number of years and their first since they finished up a multi-album contract with EMI. They've decided not to sign with another record label and are releasing the new album online. While that in itself is a little different for a big band what is most compelling about this is how they are pricing their album. They've decided to let the purchaser decide how much they are willing to pay for the album! That's right, you go to radiohead.com and you can (pre)-order the album, you enter any price you want down to 1pence and then submit your order.

For someone like myself who hasn't purchased a lot of music in recent years this is very intriguing. Clearly Radiohead can do it more easily than some other bands since they are filthy rich already but by allowing the consumer to price the product as they want it makes the proposition of purchasing music for someone like myself much more viable. I can know decide myself how much I value the music and also ensure that the money is going to the band, not some big record label.

This probably isn't the first band to do this but as far as I know they are the biggest to try something like this. Is this the future of the music industry?

Vanamutt

Great Estonian Music Video

Kaiser Chiefs in Concert

Last night I went to the Kaiser Chiefs concert, it's been awhile since I saw live music. I've always enjoyed going to shows but that past couple of years in Tallinn didn't yield a terribly large number of good concerts. Toronto on the other hand is a great music city, there are always live shows going on and bands big and small from all over the world include Toronto as a stop on their tours.

Last nights show was opened by The Walkman, a NYC band that I had never heard of. They had some decent tunes but I wasn't a big fan of the lead singer. They played a 40 minute set which overall was decent but nothing too great.

Kaiser Chiefs can on around 10:30pm and opened with a couple of songs off their first album "Employment". They tried to get the crowd to sing along with a bunch of the songs but unfortunately Toronto concert crowds are notoriously conservative and I don't think it went as well as they had wanted. Overall the Chiefs were very entertaining and put on a good show. I'm looking forward to a good summer concert season here in Toronto, coming up next is Arcade Fire at Massey Hall.

Keep on rocking.

I've been listening to Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall 1971 a lot recently. I'm a big Neil Young fan (aren't all Canadians?) and this is an excellent addition to his large list of good albums. What's most interesting to hear is that most of the songs that he sings are new and were being heard by the audience for the first time. Their reaction is often muted but these songs go on to be some of his biggest hits.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible review

So I got a copy of Arcade Fire's much anticipated sophomore album Neon Bible this weekend, it doesn't get wide release until March 6th. This is one album I've been waiting for a long time as Funeral was my favorite album from the past few years. I'll say that upon initial listening I wasn't blown away, in fact I was slightly disappointed by what I was hearing but I've managed to listen to it 3 or 4 times now and I'll say that it gets better with every listen. One thing I can say for sure is that it sounds toned down. Funeral was often times a chaotic album, the band has about 8 members and play a couple of dozen instruments on the album, so hearing some of that chaos removed from their sound was at first a bit disturbing but the music is more subtle and layered. Neon Bible manages to incorporate a lot of Organ music into it which isn't your typical rock instrument but they manage to pull it off. Overall I'd say it's a very worthy follow-up and Arcade Fire will continue to grow but Neon Bible lacks a little of the raw passion that Funeral had.