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Jumping on the ‘Pay what you want’ bandwagon
There’s no price tag on Crush Luther’s most recent album, Some People Have No Good to Give—no price tag not because it’s online but because it literally has no set price. The Toronto-based pop-rock band has jumped on the “Pay what you want” bandwagon.
Crush Luther’s Shael Fox, PJ Herrick, Luther Mallory and Matt Leitch: staying warm through more than just their fans’ gratitude.
Crush Luther first released its album on its MySpace page and iTunes for digital download before it hit stores two weeks later. When it was online, listeners paid whatever they wanted for the album. Or they could pay nothing at all.
U.K. rock band Radiohead popularized “Pay what you want” in 2003. The tech-savvy musicians decided not to renew their contract with EMI, and took on their next album without label support. They released In Rainbows on the band’s website, for digital download. Listeners could pay what they wanted, if they wanted to pay anything. An MP3 format meant there were no middlemen, such as record label executives or distribution partners, to claim a part of the band’s profits.
Radiohead made more money from this digital album than from all other online sales of their albums combined, said the band’s lead singer, Thom Yorke, in a Wired magazine interview. That’s partly because EMI hadn’t been giving them any money for digital sales, he added.
Still, other musicians have found limited benefits in offering “Pay what you want.” When Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor produced the 2007 album by breakbeat artist Saul Williams, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, Reznor and Williams released only a digital version. Over 154,000 listeners downloaded it; only 18.3 per cent of them paid for it.
It seemed “disheartening” that fewer than one in five downloaders felt it worth $5, Reznor said in a blog post on the Nine Inch Nails website. “We spent too much (correction, I spent too much) making the record . . . and nobody’s getting rich off this project,” he wrote.
A tactic for promotion and goodwill
But where Reznor and Williams and Radiohead had money motives, other artists since then are viewing “Pay what you want” simply as a promotional tool. The goal for Crush Luther’s release of Some People Have No Good to Give was to get word out on the band’s new album, said Darrin Pfeiffer, president of Crush Luther’s label, High 4 Records.
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke performs in Manchester. The band pioneered the concept of no-set-price for an album online.
“The music industry is really falling apart, and it’s initiatives like these that will help solidify buyer confidence, not only in the market and the bands but also the labels that are taking a chance and signing these bands,” he said.
In fact, it was High 4 Records that originally suggested the Crush Luther album’s no-set-price, according to Luther Mallory, the band’s lead singer.
For High 4 Records, profits weren’t part of the motive, Pfeiffer said. Just the opposite: The label did this to prove that they and the band aren’t in it for the money. The move worked, promotion-wise, and it gave back to the fans.
Not that the money is completely off the table. Said Mallory, “The advantages are banking a little bit, instead of nothing, off your album sales. You’re telling your fans, ‘I know you know how this works, but couldn’t you just throw us a nickel, so we can make a follow-up record?’”
Most people seemed fine with paying for the album. Most people paid $5, but one copy sold for $150, said Pfeiffer.
As for any disadvantages to “Pay what you want,” Mallory is uncertain. “It’s a decent, simple solution to people downloading your record for free. Some will bite and some won’t,” he said. “The way the industry is going, I’m not sure there are disadvantages.”
Today, an album’s release is more relevant than the album itself, said Al Masocco, a music marketer based out of Los Angeles.
“But I think especially for an established artist, taking what was once a high-value asset, like the release of a new CD, that same CD is now a promotional item. The CD is more about the buzz of the new album coming out than the sales. So ‘Pay what you want’ is an option that could turn into a separate wave in the future for them.”
So much music is being illegally downloaded today from pirate and bit-torrent sites that many observers and authorities are growing concerned over larger questions of copyright and intellectual property. Canada’s government is currently reviewing its copyright legislation: A proposed Copyright Reform Bill, Bill C-32, would make pirating more difficult; measures would include preventing “the manufacture, importation and sale of devices that can break digital locks” and placing an updated levy on MP3 players, according to the Canadian Heritage website.
‘The music industry is really falling apart, and initiatives like these will help solidify buyer confidence.’ – Darrin Pfeiffer
“I think until we solve the piracy issue, we’re not going to see a huge opportunity for artists of releasing their music in any way, whether it’s ‘Pay what you can’ or a more traditional model,” said Amy Terrill, a spokesperson for the Canadian Recording Industry Association. The idea that music has value is being lost with easy access to free downloads, she said.
Still, pirates ahoy
Even with Radiohead’s potentially free In Rainbows, 60 to 70 per cent of album downloads came from pirate sites anyway, said Terrill.
Luther would prefer people download from the band, even for free, if that’s the way they’re going to hear it.
“It seems now there’s a finite amount of music listeners who are willing to buy music, and that’s a small amount, and everyone else is going to download it if you want them to or not. They’re going to rip it off MySpace and somebody’s going to put it on Limewire, and it’s a horrible rip of the record. So you might as well give it to them for free,” he said.
The consumer no longer values the music, said Pfeiffer. So the industry is letting them have that choice with “Pay what you want” albums.
“[Consumers] need to care, because one day in the not-so-distant future there will be no labels. Until that day comes, it’s promotions like these that will help garner and keep fans,” said Pfeiffer.
Related links
www.radiohead.com/deadairspace
Front page photo by Amelia Johnston