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Radiohead News posted by Adriaan Pels 44 Comments

U2, Coldplay, Westlife and Radiohead

Radiohead’s decision to offer their latest album on a pay-what-you-like basis online “to some extent backfired”, U2′s manager has said.

The majority of fans who downloaded In Rainbows ignored the band’s website and acquired it illegally by other means, Paul McGuinness told BBC 6 Music: “”We should all be aware that Radiohead’s honesty box release of their album to some extent backfired. Even though it was available on their own website for no money at all, if that was what you preferred to pay – 60 to 70 per cent of the people who downloaded the record stole it anyway even though it was available for free.” The album went straight to number one in the UK and US when it became available on CD in January. Radiohead’s representatives were unavailable for comment. U2′s next album – due this year – would not follow the same approach,.

Members of U2 (bar Bono) were spotted at Radiohead’s show last weekend at Dublin’s Malahide Castle. It’s not likely Chris Martin was invited for the afterparty. Coldplay’s Chris Martin says he dreams about U2 and Radiohead: “I always dream about other musicians. And with U2 or Radiohead it’s always, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ And they are never interested in hanging out with us. It’s a permanent feeling of being at school and the bigger boys don’t want to play with you”. Speaking to Q Magazine he said: “I dreamed about Radiohead last night and Westlife the night before, which is the perfect blend of what we’re trying to do musically.”

Independent journalist Andy Gill seems to agree, when hearing the latest Coldplay album: “Their music sounds like Radiohead with all the spiky, difficult, interesting bits boiled out of it, resulting in something with the sonic consistency of wilted spinach; it retains the crowd-pleasing hooks and singalong choruses while dispensing with the more challenging, dissonant aspects and sudden, 90-degree shifts in direction.”

Coldplay could not ‘Do A Radiohead’ with their latest album as Radiohead did with ‘In Rainbows’. Chris Martin told Reuters: “We have absolute respect for the Radioheads and The Raconteurs and people who can do what they like. We’re in contract though, so we’re just going to make the most of it and enjoy the people we get to work with.”


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  • Phil’s son

    LOL. And that is why Coldplay are shit.

  • emily

    aww, chris martin always is very charming and humble in interviews unlike a lot of mainstream musicians out there, so i can’t rag on him too much. but i still prefer radiohead any day :)

  • http://khristopher.com Khristopher

    Andy Gill couldn’t have said it better than anyone. The new Coldplay album is such a yawner.

  • Jeff

    Coldplay has neared Radiohead in the quality department, mostly on their second LP. But they’ll never match Radiohead, which is okay given that few others ever will.

  • zitherglow

    u2′s manager is a dinosaur.

  • Sam

    “I dreamed about Radiohead last night and Westlife the night before, which is the perfect blend of what we’re trying to do musically.”

    lol

    10 respect points

  • begemoth

    Hahaha!!! “…consistency of wilted spinach” Brilliant! That’s journalism nowadays. Lol.

  • http://u2.com Edge

    That fuck! I wanna release it online only!

  • ishallnowperformanorwellianflipflop

    ”We should all be aware that Radiohead’s honesty box release of their album to some extent backfired. Even though it was available on their own website for no money at all, if that was what you preferred to pay – 60 to 70 per cent of the people who downloaded the record stole it anyway even though it was available for free.”

    Well duh.. you could even steal it from Radiohead.com itself if you wanted. Nevermind ignorning the website, how many people skip the record store completely and just download download download! Lots!

  • ishallnowperformanorwellianflipflop

    ”We should all be aware that Radiohead’s honesty box release of their album to some extent backfired. Even though it was available on their own website for no money at all, if that was what you preferred to pay – 60 to 70 per cent of the people who downloaded the record stole it anyway even though it was available for free.”

    Well duh.. Nevermind ignoring the website, how many people skip the record store completely and just download download download! Lots!

  • ishallnowperformanorwellianflipflop

    Ya go ahead and ignore my first post, I clearly didn’t read the fuckin article before I posted it ;) flip flop!!

  • there_there76

    Chris Martin just needs to shut up about Radiohead. We get it – you love them, they’re better than you, and they don’t like you. The more he talks about it, the more pathetic his band seems.

  • joe

    the Radioheads!

  • spike

    Coldplay get a lot of hate for no reason. They’re no Radiohead, ofcourse, but I don’t see how a fan of early Radiohead COULDN’T appreciate A Rush Of Blood To The Head or even Parachutes. X&Y was a misfire, but the new album is pretty good.

  • http://u2sucks.com tory

    how is U2′s manager an expert in anyway on the economics of downloading music? his “facts” that he bases his opinion on are poorly interpreted. the research company found that ~40% of visitors to radiohead’s in rainbows website paid for it, while the rest downloaded it for free. mcguinness makes the logical leap that the remaining 60% “stole it anyway” through “[illegal means].” that logic doesn’t make any sense. has U2 beaten the RIAA to a internet-wide music downloading tracking system?

    my long winded response can be broken down into basically: who gives a shit what U2′s manager says about in rainbows. radiohead has been changing music since the mid 90s, U2 has resorted to ipod commercials and tomb raider soundtracks. please…

  • Andrea

    I thought the point of releasing In Rainbows in such a way was to avoid leaks, not the money. I guess that shows the integrity of “superbands” and just great great bands.

  • Ben

    What a load of balls from the U2 guy! Altho Chris Martin gained my respect. seems like a fairly nice, down-to-earth fella. Not really into Coldplay tho.

  • http://jrod.com.ar/ Julián Rodriguez Orihuela

    Well, at least they know what they’re doing. Too bad Westlife sucks. Now, if they tried to mix Radiohead and… I don’t know, Pink Floyd? Queen? Beatles?

  • jacob

    Chris Martin’s a cool guy. Seems really
    nice, down to earth, not a complete
    jerk like most famouse guys. They’re no
    radiohead but their better than most bands
    I’d say.

  • Francois

    well, that’s a fair concern that the album was downloaded illegally. now, it would have happened anyway, honesty box or not, so i don’t see how relevant it is now to blame it on the honesty box…

  • kraft radio

    Rob Brydon – “He’s in…the Radioheads, you say?”

  • veggies

    I’m not sure how U2′s manager is fit to comment on the specifics of the downloading numbers. If sales are the key then he should be applauding the fact that Radiohead sold a decent amount of physical copies in addition to the digital copies all DESPITE the fact that paying for it was optional. I’d say calling it a failure is unwarranted.

    Of course, the fact that Radiohead never came forward and revealed the actual numbers, average price paid, etc does give his skepticism some weight. But who cares? He’s not in charge of Radiohead.

  • Amneeziac

    Radiohead’s true purpose in their initial format for In Rainbows’ release has been lost in all the bullshit: from early on, they had said in interviews that the reason they did it, was for the collective experience of thousands of fans across the globe downloading the album and all listening to it at once. To bring back that sense of excitement of a new record that has been lost because everything is out on the net weeks before it’s released in stores. Half the fun, as they say, is getting there.

    Anyway, with regard to that EXcitement factor that has been lost thanks to the net, do you think Radiohead’s release generated any excitement? The ten days between the announcement and the release might’ve been the most press the band’s ever gotten. It’s been eight months, and people in the media are still talking about it. So yeah, look what happens when fans get collectively excited for an upcoming record, the media turns the entire industry upside down.

    U2 manager = idiot. Chris Martin = like a puppy dog, stupid and shallow but at least he knows it.

  • Mike

    Coldplay’s new album is good, and it is different. X and Y was a lot of power ballads about nothing, but they realized what they were doing and they corrected it. The song 42 is very original and I am impressed overall with what they have done. I have regained respect for them.

  • Weirdfish7

    ….way too much hate directed toward Chris Martin and Coldplay…

    I personally don’t get it….

    I find their music enjoyable..

    the haters are jealous.
    period. bottom line. end of story.

    Coldplay is not Radiohead
    everybody knows this

    why all the hate?

    hmm?

  • twentyseventh

    It annoys me to hear people bagging the distribution method.. These comments by U2′s manager actually spawned a huge headline more or less saying “cheap fans screw Radiohead over” in a (very crappy, admittedly) Australian paper. The only informational content in the article was Mr. manager’s comment.

    Anyone who gives it half a thought though would know that Radiohead did well out of it. Hell, even if only ten percent who got the album paid anything for it, Radiohead would still have made more money than they would have by releasing it solely on CD through EMI, because they cut out the middle men. Artists on major labels get a shockingly small percentage of cash per CD sale. In contrast, Radiohead got the lot. Then, after the whole download thing, they released on CD anyway, and did well there too.

    This is of course not to mention how skewed all the stats are, considering many people went back to download for nothing when they had trouble with a paid download, and found that their download code had expired.

    Another thing to consider is how much publicity they got. Big labels kill (or at least spend millions) for that sort of exposure. Radiohead got that for nothing, simply by raising a lot of eyebrows with an unusual approach. I’d say it was one hell of a successful business move, all things considered.

  • plumit

    Na, Coldplay are OK, Their lyrics verge on the sim on the wrong side of banal, but musically they are OK – just not in the same league as “The Radioheads”

  • http://www.johngalantini.com john galantini

    I’ve heard the new Coldplay record today and i litterally cannot stop playing it. It’s fantastic – Definately the record of the summer. It towers over their previous records; sounding very positive and sustaining a constant excitement. Am I the only Radiohead fan who enjoys their music? I really dont understand why they get so much critism here. As well as Radiohead in June, I’ll be seeing them in concert later this year, in December.

    In relation to Paul McGuinnesses comments concerning Radiohead, I read this article yesterday lunch time at the BBC6 site and I litterally laughed aloud. Where the hell did he get the official download figures? How does he know how much In Rainbows made? I heard that In Rainbows made more money for the band then any of their previous releases?
    Paul’s seem to stink of grouchy jealousy.

  • levedad

    U2 is no good.
    bono is an idiot.
    coldplay was amazing til the came up with this idea of releasing x&y and now “viva la vida” (pretty bad, by the way)

    you cannot compare with radiohead.
    they are not from this planet.

  • Pajonch

    Guys, that U2 guy is a manager, not an artist, so it’s natural that he is interested in the financial aspect of Radiohead’s stunt. And even if his data is wrong, he is probably right anyway – bands aiming to make as much money as possible should probably avoid the “Radiohead model”.

  • Chris

    Haha poor Chris Martin and Coldplay.

  • Sam

    Chris Martin and his merry men get excessive abuse from Radiohead fans. I can think of plenty of bands that are worse than Coldplay that share the same level of success.

  • guest

    chris martin just wants to spoon thom with bono’s cock in his ass

  • Lyttleton

    It always seems like there is a lot of Coldplay Hatred, but I really don’t think there is. There are just a minority of petulant children (of all ages) who have to scream at the top of their lungs about what they hate as if that will make them significant.
    What I’ve heard of the new Coldplay album has been pretty great (much better than the X&Y yawner) and I respect Chris Martin for his self-awareness and earnest attempts at social/political change (he has been supporting MakeTradeFair publicly even before Coldplay was in the range of the ‘biggest band in the world’ status, so I can’t understand any hatred directed at him).

    It is possible to like both RH and CP and not contract AIDS. People need to settle.

  • Mike

    That is a good point. I don’t know where he got his figures from, but I bet a ton of people still downloaded it on bitTorrent sites or some other illegal way. If people know of such a site, they will use that rather than pay the $0.01 plus processing fee and take the time and effort to put in your credit card info that the Radiohead site required you to do. So while the price was very cheap, you still needed a credit card (which younger people don’t have) and the motivation not to steal it. I would not be surprised if a lot of people still stole it. But kudos to RH for trying something to get people to pay. Still, what is needed is not a way to get people to pay (which will never really happen unless you somehow outlaw file sharing), but a new model that incorporates free albums or incentivizes people to pay by giving them something different by paying. I was happy to pay for the discbox, but I also feel it’s unfair that I paid a lot for something many people undoubtedly stole or paid almost nothing for (though I do now have a nice discbox and extra CD).

  • http://deleted Leonard

    Coldplay are one of the better bands out there today. I mean, they’re not Radiohead. But no one is. They side more along with U2, that kind of ambient pop-rock that can be soothing and relieving, without getting too soft rock. And Chris Martin is very nice to the press, his fans. They get a bad rap, ’cause people compare them to Radiohead. Oh, wow. They’re both British. They must be related or something!?

    Yeah. How about no?
    I still consider the first two Coldplay Cd’s two of my favorite records.

  • jo

    i don’t think people compare them because they’re both british. i’m british and i don’t get compared to radiohead. much.

  • davide

    “Members of U2 (bar Bono) were spotted at Radiohead’s show last weekend at Dublin’s Malahide Castle”

    in fact, bono WAS at malahide.
    here he is (it’s authentic):

    http://scatterbrain.altervista.org/mb/index.php?showtopic=9680&view=findpost&p=303842

  • Joshua

    Chris Martin comes off as a nice guy.

    I think Coldplay is a band with a lot of potential but they make mostly shitty pop (with horrible lyrics). However, some songs (like Politik) seem to have musical genius (despite crappy lyrics).

    But since Martin said they are on contract, that kind of makes sense. I guess that’s why most of their songs are boring.

    By the way, I’m saying this as if it’s fact, but in actuality I realize that this is all my opinion. So don’t worry.

  • Muldfeld

    I kinda feel badly for Chris Martin. There’s such a sadness and sense of exclusion to his reverence for Radiohead. While I understand RAdiohead not hanging out with Coldplay, it’s certainly not above U2. Bono makes apologies for the Bush administration and calls Beyonce talented, so he’d better not exclude Coldplay.

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  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfi53I-sEDI Arlen Mccade

    I had to leave a comment and say that I 100% agree with you.

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