i love 'antiques roadshow ' on PBS - it looks like it is produced for about 12 bucks per episode, but i can't turn it off when i see it. if you aren't familiar with it, its a show where people bring in their old stuff to get it appraised. sometimes they find out they have a fake, but more often than not, some lady with a box full of silver baby spoons finds out she is sitting on a gold mine. it makes you want to run into your basement or attic and see if you still have that old doll house your grandma gave you because it might be worth a quarter million.

a couple days ago i decided what a piece of art is worth to me. radiohead, in a move that has the music industry a buzz , is releasing their newest album online - for whatever price you want to pay for it. that's right, you can pre-order it [until oct. 10th] and pay as much or as little [yes, you can pay nothing] as you like.

i was lucky enough to be one of a few thousand people who got a sneak peak of some of the new tunes they were working on when they did a small US tour last year. i always love to see what radiohead is up to. i'm intrigued with them. but while i think they are some of the most creative people making music right now, i honestly haven't listened to their latest albums that much. 'kid a' and 'hail the the theif' are great albums, but i seldom find myself in the mood for them.

so when this new disc comes out, i’m asking myself, 'what is it worth to me?' and again, if i am honest, it isn't worth the normal $15-20 that their albums and accompanying art work usually call for [although the art work is almost worth it.] that leaves me with two choices normally - pay the top dollar for a disc i will listen to a few times a year, or borrow a copy from a friend and pirate it. at this point, until i find out if i have another 'ok computer' on my hands, i don't want to pay that much - so do I gank it from a friend?

i can't tell you how many times i have heard someone rationalize pirating music with the line, 'i wouldn't have bought that disc anyway.' really what they are saying is, that disc isn't worth the price the record label has put on it. but what if it was half that price? or a quarter? would you pay for it then?

until now we haven't been allowed to make that call. until now we have been able to hide behind high prices for discs as rational for stealing music [as poor as that rational may be.] in rainbows changes all of that, at least for this disc.

the question of personal integrity is put back at the for front for all those who have long ago resigned themselves to the fact that they don't mind doing illegal things with music. ok, maybe the disc isn't worth $20 to you, but is it worth $10....how about $5? is music really worth nothing to you? how about your integrity? does that have a dollar figure attached to it?

and herein lies the genius of radiohead - in a time where writing protest songs seems overplayed and few people really stop to consider the depth of the music they are listening to - they step in and create an album of moral inquiry without a single note haven yet been released.

that's priceless.

Comments (6)

Matt Browning said:

Griffin House lets concert goers name their price I was at a Griffin House (www.griffinhousemusic.com) concert this weekend and he put on a great show. And then after the show he stood behind his merchandise table letting people pay what they thought his albums were worth. In response to Jon's comment below the "worth" of House's CD is then not based on the album as much as it is on his stage presence, as people are most likely making their decision based on their response to the show they just saw. I like this, since so often these days artist are being propped up by studio production and House's finical success relies on his amazing talent, not on a sound engineer.

November 07, 2007

Bob Davidson said:

Paste Joins the NYOP Game Well... it will be interesting to see how far the "name your own" will go...for any Paste Magazine readers out there - it's "name your own price" subscriptions: https://www.pastemagazine.com/action/nyop_subscribe

November 06, 2007

Jon Kaemingk said:

What does the "Sticker Price" include? These are some great questions... A few months ago, my favorite musical artist came out with a new album. I rushed out to purchase this new album in anticipation of the same sort of artistic expression that I have received before... however, that is not what I got. The artist that I knew has changed. She has come to express herself differently. She has decided to address "larger" and more “public” issues in a different style. I am now faced with a question... Do I discard this "new" expression… do I engage with this artist in her current focus, or fall back on the "tried and true" music that she has produced in the past? I have since “forced” my self to engage her “new” expression… I have “forced” myself to listen to a different style of music than I comfortable with… I am still trying to figure out if I agree with her… whether or not I “appreciate” this new style. However, she has in this process challenged me in ways that I would not otherwise be challenged. If I think back over the past decade that I have listened to this artist, I come to realize that it has been this way with each album that she has released. It takes time for me to come to fully appreciate the art that she has produced… the message she is communicating. How much is this type of challenge and growth worth to me in USD? $15 USD? 0.99 $ per song? Can we judge how much music is “worth” until time has passed and we can come to understand how much it has impacted us? All I know at this point is that I’m willing to give Tori the benefit of the doubt… and I’m willing to pay “sticker” price for that.

October 16, 2007

Drew de Jonge said:

Priceless This morning as I listened through the album for the first time there was a beautiful rainbow outside my office window...Now that's priceless:-)

October 10, 2007

Bob Davidson said:

FINALLY!!! I'm intrigued by the whole Radiohead experiment and all, but I'm more excited that someone else finally admitted they like Antiques Roadshow. "I can't stop watching it". There I said it.

October 08, 2007 | url

Drew de Jonge said:

What am I buying? Cheers Eric...Some great thoughts. I've been thinking quite a bit about this whole experiment since it the news came about it last week, and as I have posted in the Furum, think it is an amazing move by Radiohead. One thing that has not been talked about much is the fact that people are paying money for the new radiohead album based on name alone (as no promotional copies or singles were released). This alone is an intriguing thought to me...Do we buy art based on the creator, or on the actual product (or both)? Are we choosing how much In Ranbows is worth to us or Radiohead itself? I personally don't think this experiment would work without a band with as much artistic integrity as Radiohead...I must say that I probably would have never listened to an album like Kid A unless a band like Radiohead had made it; and to their credit, it opened some new doors for me as far the music that I listen to. So, What's next? How do we judge the success of this experiment? To be honest...I'm not really sure. I'll let you know after I hear the album:-)

October 08, 2007

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