crippling choice

[nonword]

today i find myself in the already-cliche predicament of putting a price tag on the just-announced, newest Radiohead album, which has been made available for pre-order from their website. Here's where it gets complicated: The album comes in two forms: The "disc box" contains album art (always a hit with this band), CDs, and vinyl for 40 british

Comments

[cthulhie]

I've grown rather fond of paying for things I want to support. It's not really a "vote with your wallet" thing in the political sense, but the gist is broadly right. I'm happy shunting money toward private concerns that I approve of.

I suppose the question for me these days would be: do I actually have any money? and whom am I paying--the band or the label? But the latter doesn't really matter too much. Some of the main reasons I hate labels are related to their unwillingness to do things like this.

word

[nonword]

The level of remove can be wearing, and i think it's only increasing. One doesn't pay directly for goods and services rendered. One pays someone, who is paid by someone, who oversees the paying of someone, who makes or render s the good/ service. Along the way, something gets lost and you despair that of the dollar you put down, only a penny reached the person who's effort you really want to reward. So it's thrilling when Radiohead - who maybe don't need any more money - pull a stunt like this and provide a means to pay them almost directly. It's also frustrating, because the argument that "I steal Mp3s because most of the money goes to uninvolved corporations running antiquated record production processes" is gutted when the record company is removed from the equation. The politically-motivated MP3 stealer has to really face the question: what's the album worth to me? You maybe can't put a price tag on the best albums. If someone told me I couldn't listen to OK Computer ever again unless I emptied my bank account, I'm pretty sure I

Re: word

[g_the_curious]

Who is to say that you can't buy the album twice? Buy it once for $0, give it a good spin, and if it's worth it, give the band their rightly earned money. That's one option anyway

Re: word

[g_the_curious]

PS:

Rewarding the organization as a whole as opposed to a specific piece of art may be a better long-term investment. For example, I know that a portion of the money I spent on W3 and WoW (games I never really played) is going to help develop what I really want: Starcraft2.

[branwen]

I would definitely pay for it.

But then again I am a musician with an album myself.

conclusion

[nonword]

ten pounds