Let down and hanging around…Why Radiohead lack quality

Discussing the release of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” five days after it was released and two weeks after it was announced seems a bit like holding another inquest into Diana’s death ten years on: it’s rendered pointless since everybody’s made up their mind and anything worth saying has been said. But there is another inquest, so I’ll carry on regardless.

So let’s start with the disclaimers: I like Radiohead and at times I’ve loved their music and their release of In Rainbows is radical in numerous ways: not least the set-your-own-price policy, the eschewing of established labels at this stage and the very democratic gesture of eliminating the tastemakers, pluggers etc by making everything available to everybody at the same point in time.

But why are these downloads distributed at 160kbps MP3? Maybe with no guaranteed revenue, they were keen to keep their bandwidth costs down by reducing the size of the MP3 files. Seems fair enough in that case. But with the secondary story that In Rainbows would emerge next year on a conventional CD format, the whole project takes on a different hue, seemingly confirmed by the following quote from the band’s management, or more precisely Bryce Edge,:

“You can’t listen to a Radiohead record on MP3 and hear the detail; it’s impossible… We don’t understand why record companies don’t go on the offensive and say what a great piece of kit CDs are. CDs re undervalued and sold in too cheaply.” (Music Week [subscription required], 13/10/07)

The downloads, Edge implies in a discussion of the physical release, are not the end in delivering the album to the fans, but the means to promote the CD release next year and the download quality is deliberately low to achieve this.

Of course, many will pay little, be happy enough with their downloads and not consider buying the CD. But making the CD available seems not to be about ensuring the album is made available to fifty quid man who prefers walking to surfing, nor satisfying those who want something to put next to “Hail To The Thief” on their shelves. Instead the CD seems still to be the only route of access to The Full Radiohead Experience.

For me, this compromises the idea that this a substantial challenge to the status quo. It doesn’t represent a qualitative shift towards self-distribution, but sits in a spectrum of marketing strategies aimed at making you part with a fixed amount of money at some stage. It’s more generous than the standard “here’s a free download, you might like the album”, but it’s still “have some cheap-and-nasty downloads now, and if you can sense the quality, come back next year with a crisp tenner.”

Of course, it’s disingenuous not to make 7digital’s perspective on the quality debate clear here. Since its inception three years ago, 7digital has been offering downloads at a minimum of 192kbps, and with progress in broadband penetration, download speeds and an increase in download-based music consumption in the home – we’ve stepped this up to offer 320kbps files, too. Recently we trumpeted the availability of the Radiohead back catalogue at 320kbps, and more and more files will be available.

You’ll find lossless files available for purchase in some of the dance boutique stores to meet the needs of the DJ market and club connoisseurs, and it’s something we’re preparing for, albeit in the knowledge that there is a law of diminishing returns involved, i.e. each jump delivers less discernable improvement in quality than the last.

Those in the industry know about the balance between file size and quality and the irresistible increase in the latter. Messrs Edge, Yorke et al have every right to offer the files at 160kbps – which is of course higher than the standard 128kbps that Apple hoped to hoodwink their customers with for as long as possible. But they are doing the download industry an enormous disservice in asserting that 160kbps is as good as it gets, when this is blatantly untrue.

Plenty think the recording industry in its entirety is doomed – and its ability to shoot itself in the foot is well-documented – but curiously Edge seems keener on trying save a physical format that is, sadly, fading from view at the expense of a downloading industry that is striving against formidable odds to prop up the balance sheet. Hopefully his perspective will remain unchallenged only in the trade papers, rather than misinforming the public at large, who might prefer to download Let Down at 320kbps rather than simply feel let down.

Ian Bell – Operations Manager
ian dot bell (at) 7digital dot com
7digital