SKAGGS Blog

As some you probably heard, Radiohead released there last album, In Rainbows, for donations only a week ago. Most people, especially those in the record industry, probably thought they were crazy. Well, the results are in - in one week, Radiohead sold 1.2 million albums at an average donation price of $8 grossing roughly $10 million! No middleman, no promotion and they exceeded their launch week sales of their last three albums combined. Brilliant!

There is a bit of buzz on the web about all of this. Seth Godin points out:

The thing to keep in mind is this: the value of the permission. The fact that the group now has more than a million people they can go make music for is worth many times over what these people already paid. If they’re smart, they’ll continue to change the way they work. Paying for their mp3s should get you into a club, a club with continuing benefits.

It will be interesting to see how sales continue over the next couple of weeks and more importantly what Radiohead does next.

BTW, the album is great.