A comparison of the Last.fm chart

A comparison of the Last.fm chart and the official UK downloads chart after Radiohead’s In Rainbows was released online last week. The top 10 on Last.fm: all Radiohead. Official chart: nada. (via adactio)

• inrainbows
• Last.fm
• lists
• music
• Radiohead

Marginal Revolution and CNN (and New York

Marginal Revolution and CNN (and New York magazine and Reddit and etc.) asked their respective readers: how much did you pay for In Rainbows, Radiohead’s new album which is only available as a pay-what-you-want download. I paid around £8.50 (~ US$17), which splits the difference between a typical album price in the UK and the US. (Actually, what I did was download it from elsewhere because Radiohead’s online store was down yesterday morning and then went back to pay for it just now.)

• business
• economics
• inrainbows
• music
• Radiohead

Radiohead has a new album coming out

Radiohead has a new album coming out called In Rainbows. It’s only available from their site for now, either as a download (released Oct 10) or as a “discbox” that includes the CD, a bonus CD, two records, and assorted photos, books, etc. (released Dec 3). (via rex)

Update: Also, Radiohead is letting the buyer choose his/own price for the online album. This has been done before, notably by Magnatune, who offers albums for between $5 and $18 with a recommended price of $8…and people often pay more than the recommended. (thx, greg)

Update: Singer Jane Siberry does variable pricing for her music as well. Siberry also cleverly lists what other people are paying (currently $1.18 per song, a bit more than the recommended $0.99). Freakonomics explains. (thx, phil)

• inrainbows
• music
• Radiohead