[Moof_in_Charge]

No you didn't understand the question fully or in your haste to come up with a derogatory and combative comment you left the essence of the issue on the back burner. You were too occupied in your primary goal to belittle someone.
What does working for major labels have to do with anything, this is a consumer perception story.
The Gold, Silver, Platinum and diamond labels mean different things in different countries, it's not standard, in US 500k gets you gold, in Australia 75,000 gets you gold.. So for the love of whatever, don't use a label like that to try and make a band relevant.
There is nothing confusing about it, the term "top-selling" went down as an "authoritative" testament to the band's relevancy.... yeah okay, whatever....

[Walt_Basil]

Ill try to listen to some. Im accustomed to listening to my 30 secs worth off iTunes for songs I dont know, but alas Ill have to find some elsewhere to try them out. Or find someone that has some. Thanks for the suggestions. Who knows maybe Ill end up throwing some money their way.

[DarrenForbes]

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Let's not turn this into an argument about musical quality.
Far from it, I just wanted to know what top selling was. Who am I (or anyone for that fact) to question someone's taste in Music.
For instance, Cold Play has sold more records than Radiohead, The Cure has sold magnitudes more records, They're top selling too, (I guess) but compared to what?
To me the article was trying portray Radiohead as a trend setter which by itself is hilarious for a band billed as "the new Pink Floyd".
This is not meant to belittle Radiohead, it's a question on reporting style that seemed to use a bit of marketing. Am I sensitive to that? Yes.
Could have said "influential", "widely-followed", "loyal following" but instead we got "Top-selling" hmmmm okay, didn't realize that was the criteria for relevancy. that measure puts Britney Spears as far more relevant than Radiohead.
Anyway, "hail to the Chief" has sold about ~950k copies since 2003, to me at least that statistic negates "Top-selling during the past 15 years"... well maybe top-selling from whenever to 2003.... but whatever!
Anyway, good luck to Radiohead. this will be an interesting experiment indeed. Allowing fans to have a say in their music's pricing is great but I question the sentiment that the band is doing this to combat Piracy.... LOL

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Yes but the article was about the way the music was being sold as so mentioning sales is more important than mentioning fans or musical 'worthiness'. None of your other suggestions are really to do with sales. The 15 years a reference to the longevity of the band showing that they have sold quite a lot of records over a sustained period, this demonstrates that they are not 'one hit wonders' when it comes to album sales. It also helps to establish that the band are fairly rich and are not risking their financial futures on the venture. Britney is far more relevant than Radiohead when it comes to sales and so if she was to try this approach to selling music then it would also be newsworthy. If my friends old band tried it then I wouldn't expect a story at all. If the band wasn't a 'top selling' one then it really isn't that big a story.
The article does suggest that the band is doing this to reduce piracy but does that band claim this? If you want to be picky about the article than the use of 'compelling' instead of 'encouraging' seems a greater flaw to me. They just seem to be experimenting with a different sales approach that removes the need for labels.
If you really really need a definition of "top selling" in this context then we could try to work out the statistics but is it really worth it? If you list all of artists that have released albums over the past fifteen years in order of total album sales Radiohead would be a lot lot closer to the top than the bottom. If you did this over the past five years they wouldn't be as close to the top but I'd wager a whole English pound that they would be in the top 1% of the list. What percentage of albums released sell even one million copies?
Anyway it's the attempt that is important and it will be interesting to see that statistics on what people are willing to pay.

[veggiedude]

I've been wondering for years why any established group would still go thru record labels - just sell your stuff directly via your own web site.
iTunes has its place - for new bands. But for the RadioHeads of the world, there is no need for it.

[Moof_in_Charge]

the article was about the way the music was being sold
I am not sure what the article was about. The title says, "they shunned iTunes". Hmmm, so to me the title puts iTunes on the defensive instead of Radiohead experiments with a new distribution model.
None of your other suggestions are really to do with sales
Charlatans (a popular UK band) announced a "free" album giveaway but somehow Jeremy Kirk of IDG decided to make what amounts to a Fan writing about his/her favorite group, billing it as an anti-itunes story. It was a brilliant piece indeed, a brilliant infomercial for Radiohead's new offering.
This story's objective should have been the reactions out of Record company executives instead of an iTunes frontal attack. iTunes is a complimentary service, any journalist trying to bill it as a "recording artists against iTunes" simply and grossly misses the point.
the entity that is getting hurt here is the Record companies and RIAA, not Apple. Apple doesn't care if iPods play Radiohead or yours truly belting out a tune as long as Apple sells me a unit they fulfilled their interest.

[DarrenForbes]

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I've been wondering for years why any established group would still go thru record labels - just sell your stuff directly via your own web site.
iTunes has its place - for new bands. But for the RadioHeads of the world, there is no need for it.

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Many bands sign extended contracts to release a series of albums through a label in order to get full support from them in the early years. Radiohead had a six album contract they had to fulfil before going it alone. I assume many other established bands are still under their contracts. If Radiohead are successful some of them may go fully independent after their contracts expire.
In one way it is a bold experiment; reaching beyond the control of a record label. Remember however that Radiohead are very unlikely to lose money. A lot of their fan base will buy the 40 CD set so they don't need to make much from the downloads. Oh, and they are already loaded.

[Ilgaz]

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I've been wondering for years why any established group would still go thru record labels - just sell your stuff directly via your own web site.
iTunes has its place - for new bands. But for the RadioHeads of the world, there is no need for it.

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This is only the first step, getting rid of record company. Macworld or other Mac sites name it like something against iTunes store or Apple but it is not. Apple will be happier if they paid to artists rather than billion dollar record companies. It would make legal music sales explode since fans would know the artist gets money.
Now I started to wonder which large, popular band as Radiohead will make the true revolution, sell album with non traditional copyright.
I am speaking about magnatunes.com scheme which is creative commons. It doesn't have to be magnatunes, they can offer through their own site.
In fact, creative commons serves a great purpose. You see the true face of those so called "revolutionary" bands which are supposed to stand against organised anything but happy with billion dollar media giants abusing their own artistic work.

[Moof_in_Charge]

I think Apple has a marketing problem. Look at the title of this story, what is iTunes? iTunes is an application. This story makes no sense, why would a band (ie "act") shun an application?
Many folks incorrectly refer to iTunes Store as iTunes. This can certainly hurt Apple down the road. While I firmly believe Apple created iTunes to manage your music, it created iTunes store to help create a market for music to feed in to iPods. When people attack the iTunes store under the guise of iTunes, they're attacking iTunes, iPods and the store.
That's sort of misguided but it's prevalent enough for Apple to be concerned.

[Dan Frakes]

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There is no denying it, "Radiohead" has an established fan base, but come on, top-selling for the past 15 years is stretching it a bit ! ! !

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They've released six albums in the past 14 years and all but one went platinum (and that one went gold). I realize people have widely-divergent views on Radiohead -- heck, I have a love-hate thing with each of their albums -- but I don't think it's a stretch to call them a "top-selling act for the past 15 years." What's amazing is that they've sold so many albums in spite of a radio-unfriendly sound. (Although -- and the hardcore Radioheads will call this blasphemous /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif -- my favorite Radiohead song is still "High and Dry," which did indeed get radio play.)

P.S. Let's (everyone) keep the discussion civil here, shall we?

[DarrenForbes]

Our original discussion was about your complaint about the use of "top selling" in the article in relation to Radiohead. That is why I focussed on sales. The term does not seem inappropriate or as unclear as you seem to think it was. You have selected only two portions of my earlier reply and ignored their context. Does this mean that you accept that Radiohead are 'a top selling' band by any reasonable definition?
It seems a bit much that you now want to broaden this to a critique of the whole article. If you must then I think that you are correct in saying that it reads like a puff piece, very similar to the short articles on sofware releases that appear regularly. I do not know if the author is a fan or not.
The link with iTunes is tenuous and probably only added to justify the article appearing on MacWorld. Using "shuns" is overly harsh in the title; Radiohead have given no explanation as to why their albums are not available on iTunes. The most likely reason that the earlier albums are not available (Radiohead want the albums to be sold as complete albums) should have been mentioned instead of implying that there was a dislike of the iTunes concept itself. I assume the title is designed to draw Apple sensitive readers into reading the article in the first place and is also an attempt to make the article relevant to the publisher.
The sales information at the end reads like an advertisement except for the phrase "to the another financial extreme" which implies that the product is overpriced in some way.
As you say, the article would be much more interesting if it explored the reactions of record labels to the news (as in one of the articles linked by a poster on this forum). This is where I attempted to push the discussion on the forum earlier.
As an aside:
Apple do care about the sales they make from iTunes. Perhaps not as much as they care about hardware sales but the revenue from iTunes is certainly not insignificant and it continues to grow apace. Sales growth seems to be over 200% per year and Apple cannot be foolish enough to ignore this source of revenue.

[Moof_in_Charge]

No the original argument was about the commercialism in reporting today. Please read the first post and please try and see what the sarcasm in the first paragraph refers to.
A follow up comment to Schneb distilled it down to an idea that wouldn't have left doubt any one's mind what I was getting at. Schneb understood my point beautifully. I have since during various posts alluded to my original intent.
Any way, the discussion was broadened as it does when you debate a point long enough. But throughout the span of this thread, the original sentiment equating the piece to a simple PR for Radiohead remains.
The term is appropriate if you're trying to put a band on a pedestal and promote its new product. If there was any doubt, the title of the story should have removed it from your emotions. This is a PR piece to publicize Radiohead.
As far as Apple and iTunes are concerned, most everyone gets it wrong. iTunes Store is a vehicle for Apple to promote the iPod which has also become a vehicle to promote the Mac. It created the iTunes store during a time where no other compelling system existed. They ushered in a new market with fanfare to protect/promote the iPod. Apple is not a content provider and they're not out to promote Artists to deal with iTunes Store exclusively. Apple deals with the legal entity who has the authority on behalf of the artist to negotiate deals, that is regardless of what that authority is. Regardless of Label or Agent, you're going to see a Lawyer behind it taking some of the band's money and imposing evermore ridiculous policies.
An iPod has one of the highest profit margins for Apple in any product category they manufacture. It is also amongst the highest profit margin of any hardware on the planet. Apple's first priority is to make sure that its iPod sales remain strong. Radiohead, Charlatan UK and a whole host of freebies and low cost content only benefit the iPod in the long run. They create and maintain a need to go out and purchase these devices. Just about most uncharted artists are using some sort of heavily discounted distribution models like emusic and so on. Why is it that Radiohead is getting a singular attention here?
So Radiohead shouldn't even be seen a pioneer here, isn't this what Podcasts are all about? I mean essentially that's what a podcast is.
so again, the article is nothing but a PR piece that gets it wrong on all accounts. If the goal of the article was to promote Radiohead, using terms like "top-selling" was appropriate, if the article's goal was to discuss the new distribution model for Music, it was unnecessary at best but more likely on par with absurd. What's so unique about what Radiohead is doing anyway?
Steve Jobs illustrated this point rather clearly with his letter asking the Music industry to abolish DRM . if his letter didn't outline Apple's desire for an open system, nothing is going to help me make a simple case that even Apple admits to having a non proprietary place for content is not a threat to the iPod, in fact it's a blessing. So what now, Radiohead wants Credit for a letter Steve wrote about 9 months ago?
Repeat after me, "Radiohead PR", "Radiohead PR", "Radiohead PR"
Meanwhile Apple releases iTunes 7.4.3 and no sign of that news on Macworld's news section!

[Uncle_Deercamp]

Dear Radioknob,
It's been done.
Signed,
the Internet

[caduceus]

It'll be cool if they post their "average" payment... I'd like to see a histogram of that in a couple months/years/decades.
BTW: How do I know how much it's worth until after I've listened to it?

[maint1]

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Who is this "Radiohead" of which you speak? I can't think of a single song of them that I know. I listen to a wide variety of music and music channels (XM radio), but can't think of a single song from them that I ever wanted. To give an idea of how wide my taste is, recent iTunes purchases include sevendust, Maroon 5, The Real Tuesday Weld, Jem, Wilco, Killswitch Engage, Hurt, Hed Pe, Billy Thorpe, Cake, Orgy, Smashing Pumpkins, Evens Blue, North Mississippi Allstars. And these are just from the last few weeks or so.

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Really? Then you must go to Amazon and buy a used copy of Ok Computer. It's one of my favorite albums and the best one Radiohead has put out.
I don't think I'll buy the new one, whatever it is..... It's not as good as....
Or I might if I can pay .46$ for it. :-)
Corgan tends to annoy me. ``In spite of my rage I am still whining in rage.'' I like a lot of his songs but he grates on my nerves.