Robert Smith Slams Radiohead’s Free Album Release

Robert Smith, singer and guitarist of The Cure, thinks Radiohead’s “pay what you want” business model for 2007’s release of their album In Rainbows is fundamentally wrong, and said that “you can’t allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don’t consider what you do to have any value at all and that’s nonsense.”

Radiohead probably made money, even with the “free” strategy, and the subsequent physical release went to number 1 in the US and the UK. However, at the time Smith “disagreed violently” with what he calls the “Radiohead experiment.”

“If I put a value on my music and no one’s prepared to pay that, then more fool me,” says Smith, “but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan, it can’t work.”

Can it work? Should we control how much music is worth? Smith’s statements betray a more capitalistic way of thinking, but at the time of the release, Radiohead did already have enough money to justify zero profits on the album.

Source: Musicradar