Hip-Hop 2.0: What Hip-Hop Could Learn From Radiohead

November 1, 2007

This video features Jay Smooth of illdoctrine explaining what record labels could learn from the way Radiohead handled the release of their latest album, inrainbows. Basically the group made the set available on their website in a manner where the user could decide how much they wanted to pay, even if it was nothing. This generated great buzz for Radiohead and their album, and this is exactly the point that Jay Smooth makes about Jay-Z’s American Gangster in this video. All of the hype about the album is taking place on the Internets because someone leaked the album. Jay (not Z) feels that labels could learn a lesson about this and learn to leak their albums instead of having it happen without being part of their own marketing strategy.

Why the majors don’t get it, I’ll never know, but independents have started to understand this a lot better. For instance, that image above this text is for the release of Saul Williams’ latest release, Saul Williams Presents The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust. Williams took a page out of Radiohead’s book and released the album today on his site with the option to pay a $5 donation or to download it for free. In this instance Williams is in control of the event of selling and distributing his record, and therefore the hype about the album will be about the actual release date and not an unofficial leak.

I’m starting to think that Jay Smooth is on to something with his theory. I just hope the labels and its execs are listening.

Technorati Tags: hiphop2.0, jaysmooth, illdoctrine, records, music, labels, leak, leaks, label, video, saulwilliams, radiohead, jay-z

Category: Celeb 2.0, Content, Digital Media, Strategy

Mega

While both Radio Head and Jay Smooth have advanced the movement of User Generated Value (UGV - coined here first on BW2.0) they are not exactly pioneers in this space. Several years ago while still under a distribution contract with PolyGram, Public Enemy released on their own There's a Poison Goin' On over the internet and on zip drives, until they were officially finally released from their contract, thus paving the way for Radio Head and Jay Smooth to take their current dis-intermediation approach of asking for UGV for their latest releases.

See the Wired Magazine archive article for more on the P.E. pioneering release:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commen...

Lynne d Johnson

Thanks for this education Mega, I too noted the early advancements made by public enemy on my own blog a few days ago.

A Study: Soulja Boy and Web Marketing & Distribution, but Don't Forget Radiohead:

A few years ago, 2002 to be exact, I predicted such a future when I spoke on a panel -- "Black Music Technology" -- at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting. The paper I presented, "Hip-Hop's Transformers: Technologies of Production and Distribution in Hip-Hop," was kind of all over the place. I had the technologies and production part down, but the distribution part was a little weak. The only example we had at the time was Chuck D, and it wasn't very successful -- not yet, especially because we hadn't yet heard of "The Long Tail." One of my panel members even told me she didn't see that the Web would be a viable distribution channel any time soon. Perhaps it was just too early to tell.

In fact, Chuck D wrote in that very same year:

2002, the 15th year of PUBLIC ENEMY, expect some new records and some revamped old ones (or classics as they say) thru www.slamjamz.com, but most of all this year were gonna tour some exotic places, do music and have fun doin it. Stay tuned I’ll keep you posted, yup.

I could have put this post in a historical context and mentioned this as well here, and then I could have added Prince and his NPG Website and his efforts at digital distribution and record releases. It's just that I was commenting on Jay Smooth's video, which in and of itself is a cultural critique of recent developments in the entertainment industry.

BTW, Jay Smooth has not released an album. Jay Smooth is the guy in the video talking about why record labels should look closely at what Radiohead has done to control their own distribution and thus the fandom created around record releases. He primarly discusses why Jay-Z could have capitalized off of this strategy. Likewise, I throw in Saul Williams as an example of an independent who has also taken advantage of the ways in which music aficionados like to consume music nowadays.

Also Mega, I'm loving the UGV as a play on the value of user generated media that's being bandied around the Internets a lot lately.

Mega

Thanks Lynne, for your note. I apologize, in that I miss cited the two artists involved, I should have in fact referenced Saul Williams as the other artist making advances in the distribution effort instead of Jay Smooth. I got a little excited about posting ;-).

jbyrd

"Jay (not Z) feels that labels could learn a lesson about this and learn to leak their albums instead of having it happen without being part of their own marketing strategy."

Eh, believe it or not, I think some artists on major labels have been up to this for quite a while...

Lynne d Johnson

jbyrd, no doubt. i'm thinking of one recent example of 50 cent leaking stuff to radio bc the label wasn't promoting for him yet. there are of course others.

Mega

Some of the numbers are in! According to Robert Andrews on PaidContent.org 38 Percent Of Downloaders have chosen to pay (place some UGV in the range of $2 - $8) for RadioHead album "In Rainbows". This means 62 percent "kept their change in their pocket." ComScore (NSDQ: SCOR) data (via release) shows 1.2 million people visited the site in the first 29 days of October (it was launched at the start of the month).

The average price paid was $6 on a globalized basis but Americans were more generous, coughing up $8.05 - factor in the freeloaders, however, and it's more like an average $2.26 on a worldwide basis and $3.23 from Americans. The most common amount offered was below $4, but 12 percent were willing to pay between $8 and $12, around the typical cost of an album from iTunes. We could in fact be witnessing the ushering in of the era of User Generated Value.

Also of note, in an online exclusive, EMI/Parlophone and RadioHead are selling the full back catalog of RadioHead music on a 4Gb USB stick in CD -quality WAV files with digital artwork, and the stick is in the shape of the Radiohead bear. This will continue to be disruptive food for thought among the archaic leaders of the music industry.

Lynne d Johnson

I'm still trying to decide whether I think the RadioHead experiment is a failure or a success. Maybe it's neither and just as you said "ushering in of the era of User Generated Value."