By Jennifer Jacob
Countless people predicted it — bloggers, print and television media, musicians and music lovers alike — and so far it looks like they're right.
Radiohead's pay-what-you-want online release of their newest album, "In Rainbows," has inspired others, ranging from huge acts like Nine Inch Nails to artists that hardly anyone has ever heard of, to follow in their lead.
Trent Reznor, the man behind the music of Nine Inch Nails, has announced the release of a pay-what-you-want album of his own as well as one he produced for the less famous Saul Williams, without affiliating either album with any record label.
Reznor posted some results of the Saul Williams experiment on nin.com, saying he was disappointed that only 18.3 percent of those who downloaded the album chose to pay for it and that little money has been made from the project.
"But," he posted, "Saul's music is in more peoples' iPods than ever before and people are interested in him. He'll be touring throughout the year and we will continue to get the word out however we can."
While Reznor capped his not-so-great news with a look-on-the-bright side message, Comedian Steve Hofstetter is truly optimistic about his pay-what-you-want comedy album, and says he is getting better results. He's released his new album, "The Dark Side of the Room," as a pay-what-you-want digital download, and says that even with freeloaders who choose not to pay, the amount paid per album averages at around $6.
"The second I read the Billboard article about Radiohead doing it," Hofstetter said of the new distribution method, "I knew it was a great idea."
He conceded that there are a great number of freeloaders — the two most popular prices for the album are 'free' and $10 (what it would cost on iTunes) — but he's still making that $6 per album. If he'd released the album through a record company, fans would have had to pay a lot more, and Hofstetter would only have seen $1.50 of it per CD sold. Not to mention that there's no telling how many of the people who freeloaded Hofstetter's album legally would have freeloaded it illegally had it been sold under a label.
Hofstetter says that fans like the idea of pay-what-you-want albums, not just because they get a discount, but because they know the money isn't going to some already filthy rich guy somewhere who walks around in a $5,000 suit talking on whatever the most expensive cell phone is right now — it goes to the artist.
"They know that artists spend their money on creating more art," he said.
Hofstetter thinks the trend will continue to grow, and said that he's had other artists sending him e-mails about their desire to go the same route. He said he even had an author tell him he would release a pay-what-you-want e-book before the release of a physical copy.
Physical copies of Hofstetter's CD are already available through his Web site and will be in stores in March. But unlike Radiohead, who put a limited time period on their pay-what-you-want download, Hofstetter will continue with the download of his album after releasing the CD in stores.
Another way to go is the pay-almost-what-you-want route. Magnatune, a web-based record label, releases its artists' albums both as digital downloads and as physical CD's, inviting buyers to pay what they want — as long as it's not below $5. It then splits all profits 50/50 with the artist — extremely generous for a record label. But not that generous considering that Magnatune acts more like a distributor than a label — it doesn't give artists any kind of advance, and rather expects them to record on their own, presumably, according to Magnatune owner John Buckman, in their homes.
And even though an artist who sells 1,000 albums through Magnatune will probably make more than if they'd sold the same 1,000 albums through a major label, signing with Magnatune is not likely to boost an artist's sales all that much — they offer only limited promotion.
Still, the label has attracted hundreds of artists, many of whom would rather get 50 percent of 1,000 record sales than 5 percent of 10,000. Why? It's the principle of the thing. Magnatune's claim is that it's on the artist's side. Buckman says that he created it after his wife lost all rights to her music for eight years after signing with another independent label, one which fell prey to major labels.
Magnatune's motto is "We are not evil." Not being evil, it seems, appeals to artists.
Steve Hofstetter isn't a fan of evil either. Not by coincidence, he is also no fan of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), who have been using questionable methods in the minds of some, to prosecute suspected illegal downloaders of music. He believes that music distribution is in the middle of a huge change for the better.
"Record companies," he says on his Web site, "have moved to combat this change with all speed of a pregnant sloth on valium."
The future, many artists hope, does not lie with the pregnant sloths, but with the artists themselves, whose salvation from the major labels may be found with the Internet, and the inability of record companies to conform to it.
Hofstetter is not that famous. He's somewhat well-known by sports fans, especially ones who are in college, and is successful enough to play large-ish venues on long-ish tours. Certainly, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are far more well-known than he. But Hofstetter is the face of the revolution that could be in the music industry. Unknown or not-all-that-known artists who want people to hear their music (or comedy, or whatever), but aren't as keen on the idea of turning their art over to a big company who take more than their fair share, not just of the money, but of the legal rights to the art, are understandably attracted to the pay-what-you-want idea.
One pretty much unknown group that's been inspired by the pay-what-you-want phenomenon is Meridian's S2S Records, a small new label headed up by local musician Adam Wade. The label is home to three local artists and one from Austin, Texas, and is considering following the pay-what-you-want trend and releasing some albums as pay-what-you-want starting at $5.
"We've toyed with the idea," said Wade, "but there's still a lot of planning to do before we decide." For now, though, the first album under the label, Stop to Sleep's "The Sleepy EP" sells at $7 for a physical CD, or 99 cents per song online.
Still, the trend is clear — evil corporations are so five years ago. Artists and fans coming together to revolutionize the music industry is totally in. But it's not going to happen tomorrow. With Trent Reznor digging into his own pocket to provide bandwidth to freeloaders, Radiohead and Hofstetter both releasing a label-backed CD to go with their free download, and organizations like Magnatune, um, not really doing all that much, the would-be revolution has a lot of bugs to work out and a long way to go. But with record industry corruption becoming a visible problem as far back as the 1950s, when a hit record was only achievable through the now illegal practice of payola (which some say has been replaced with legal versions of itself), at least the revolution has finally begun.
Check out a couple of the pay-what-you-want albums currently available online. And don't be a freeloader — the artists worked hard to create their albums, at least pay a couple of bucks.
Saul Williams, "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust," www.niggytardust.com.
Steve Hofstetter, "Dark Side of the Room," www.stevesnewalbum.com
Albums from Magnatune, which let the buyer choose a price starting at $5, are available at
www.magnatune.com.
