The Relative Worth of Radiohead (aka my hypocritical ways)

I’ll spend $8 for a beer and sometimes $12 for a drink. I don’t particularly like it, but I do. I pay for small luxuries all the time that don’t offer the long lasting entertainment value of music and I think nothing of it. But music, I have very stringent (yet fluid and arbitrary) notions of music’s worth to me. While mp3s are a fine way to sample a band, I still buy CDs. But it annoys me when they cost more than $12.99. I’m more likely to buy a CD from a band that I think needs the money versus one that I think doesn’t. But not always, sometimes I buy them used and the hungry band gets nothing. Meanwhile, Radiohead doesn’t need my money, but I love packaging – although not enough to buy their deluxe $50 “newspaper” edition. I don’t love packaging quite that much. While I like collecting music, I don’t think of it as collectible.

The thing is, I like to hold a CD in my hands. It gives the music added value. I make my own cases and covers, if I have to (for, say, a live torrent or a CD I’ve burned from a friend) … so I was mildly annoyed when Radiohead wanted $14 for a lossless download of their latest album “King of Limbs.” It’s not they don’t deserve to be paid, they most certainly do, regardless of how rich they are. But $14 seems like a lot to pay for no packaging. I willingly paid $5 for a compressed download of “In Rainbows.” How large of me, I know. I could have paid nothing. Even considering their broadband costs, the band made twice what they would have gotten from a traditional record company on that sale. Now they want almost three times that.

As my pitiful rationalizations suggest, I didn’t buy the album. And I really like Radiohead. So, I tracked down “King of Limbs” online. I listened to the tracks on someone’s blog. Then I listened to it again on Youtube. I’ve already listened to it more than some albums I own and I haven’t really processed it yet. At the moment, King of Limbs seems fine, maybe a bit uninspired, like they’re phoning it in. But Radiohead has earned the benefit of the doubt and this is not a review. I will undoubtedly listen to it several more times. The fact is, despite having already grossed several hundred dollars in concert tickets and CD sales from me, they deserve to have me pay for the amount of entertainment I’ve already received from this single recording. Certainly it’s been worth an overpriced cocktail and a tip. But they’re not likely to get it from me, at least not just for a download, which I suppose makes me kind of a creep.