Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes ( Deluxe White Vinyl )

[agaetisbyrjun]

I find it very hard to believe that there were 100,000 LP box sets sold of In Rainbow....or am I misunderstanding?  Are you talking about the 2 LP box set with the 2 cds?  I could have sworn that Jack White's Lazaretto just broke the record for vinyl sales, but that was significantly lower...like around 65,000 total vinyl sales.

 

Maybe you mean combined total vinyl records of IN RAINBOWS (deluxe and standard versions) but definitely not the deluxe set...right?

 

Lazaretto broke the record of first week vinyl sales in the US (60k in one week). The 100k figure was given in November 2008, about a year after release (and I assume was a worldwide figure). If I recall correctly the discboxes weren't available for the whole year but they had them in stock longer than a week.

These numbers come directly from Radiohead's publisher Warner Chappell

[psus2h]

Store works...try this link: http://store.tomorrowsmodernboxes.com/

Then you can click the currency you want (UK pound, Euro or US Dollar)

So just thinking outside of the box, use a credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees, pay in Pounds, and it's only about $48.50. Not much of a savings but still a little off is big!

[Cloudsbelow]

I'm curious as to your thoughts on this. From my perspective, people may have paid less per album but the band made more money and still had 3 million units moved. To me that seems pretty successful

 

 

Its impossible for us to define what would constitute a "huge success" with their pay what you want approach, without knowing the motivations behind choosing that model.  Vague claims that they made more money is great but it leaves out many details that may or may not play into whether or not it was a success (in the eyes of the band).  It cant have been that rad ($$$) since pretty much no one else has tried it, and if they did they tried it once and stopped.

 

For one, what did it cost them to service all these orders..?

[stl_ben]

yes pay what you want is a huge failure and no one uses it now....... bandcamp.com

[Cloudsbelow]

yes pay what you want is a huge failure and no one uses it now....... bandcamp.com

 

errrr... I think we're talking apples and oranges here.  Last time I paid what I wanted for an album on bandcamp it wasnt from a band that shifts units like Radiohead.

[ExtraFox]

Anyone had a shipping confirmation or know when the cut off for the first pressing was? Ordered mine Saturday afternoon. 

 

I'm in the UK and my order arrived today with no dispatch email.

[komodot]

Same here, got it this morning 

[timsimmons]

Turn it 90 degrees. You can't read the spine, but it will just barely fit.

 

 

this post has changed my life.

[museummouth]

this post has changed my life.

Same here. Thanks!

[filthyrich]

The fact that both Radiohead and Trent Reznor claim they made more from their first independent releases (IR and Ghosts, respectively) than from ALL their major-label releases put together says two things:

1) Bands make very little off major-label deals, even ones with a huge fanbase.

2) Bands with a huge fanbase (cultivated from, yes, being on a major label) will make far more revenue self-releasing their own albums and using the majors solely for distribution.

[MajorThumb]

Yeah, i agree.. it will be on cd.  .. and not too sure about how well those other "experiments" turned out.  a fixed price for this download kinda suggests that the "pay what you want" experiment didnt work out $o well...

First, I know someone else pointed this out, but the "pay what you want" experiment was always intended to be a one and done type of deal.  The band made that clear very early on.  It wasn't intended to be repeated so it doesn't really make sense to try and equate "success" with them trying the same thing in the future.

Second that's entirely speculative and depends on your personal stance on what success means.  You can't really speak for the band so you can't gauge exactly how well it worked out for them.  Everything I've read from the band indicates they've been more than happy with the results and as the other link posted mentioned they were more successful digitally than they were with their previous releases combined.  It sure sounds like a success to me.

 

 

Estimations for the average price paid is well below the $6 mark.  "A big fat failure, then? Not at all." does not mean it was a huge success.  

 

See that's the thing about this "debate", no one knows what the average price paid actually was because the band hasn't given any details.  According to the only "data" that we do have on the release, the "average price paid" for the download was indeed $6.  If you have another source for your estimations I'd be curious to read it.  I think it comes down to a misunderstanding on the wording.

The closest to "data" we have is an internet monitoring company named Comscore (mentioned in that first link).  According to them the average price paid was $6 ($8.05 in the US).  BUT, and perhaps this is where the confusion might be, the average price per download was $2.26.  This is because Comscore believes 62% of users did not pay anything.  So when you tally up the 38% who did pay the average price paid is $6, when you add in the people who downloaded for free the price drops to $2.26.  To put it simply, if you paid nothing you aren't part of the "average price paid"... you didn't pay.

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2007/11/Radiohead-Downloads

At the end of the day I see a release that garnered them more profit than their previous releases combined digitally, a physical release that totaled 1.75 million in the first year alone and a 100,000 disc box sets sold at $80.  Plus, they actually got to keep ownership of their own material.  If that isn't a success, I really don't know what is.  That's my opinion.  And that's what I think is the coolest thing about the experiment.  It doesn't really matter what we think, what the label thinks or what Billboard thinks... they managed to avoid all that.  In the end they remain the only ones who really know the details on it all, and fittingly for one of their first times as a band they would be able to decide what success really means for themselves.

[Cloudsbelow]

It doesn't really matter what we think, what the label thinks or what Billboard thinks... 

 

 

Suggesting revenue = profit is a little misleading.  Sure they made more but it surely cost them more, without the label fronting.

 

like you said, it doesnt really matter. all that matters is that the single Lp of 'in rainbows' was cut from the CD... 

 

 

Those of you who have received their copies (lucky!).. report!  how does it sound?  I'd be interested to know whats in the runout.  

 

Thanks!

[MajorThumb]

I'm in the UK and my order arrived today with no dispatch email.

Awesome news... except now I get to play the guessing game with how long it takes to get to the US and whether or not I got a first pressing.  Curious what exactly that "order tracking" section does on the site.  It doesn't lead anywhere, no one seems to be getting e-mails.  If it were many years ago I'd assume it was another one of their puzzle websites.

[MajorThumb]

Suggesting revenue = profit is a little misleading.  Sure they made more but it surely cost them more, without the label fronting.

 

I noticed after posting that you said roughly the same thing.  Maybe it's just a glass half full, glass half empty.  We're both acknowledging that ultimately the band is the only one who can decide what success means.

For what it's worth I didn't entirely mean to suggest revenue=profit.  More simply my point was that there are very clear indicators of what would be pretty universally agreed upon as success for the release, and I can't think of anything that would come close to indicating failure.  When the original premise is that the "pay what you want" idea failed and that's why they haven't done it again, it feels relevant to note that was never the intention and that every indicator seems to point towards the positive.  There just doesn't seem to be any evidence to support the suggestion that 'things didn't work out so well'. 

Things have slightly drifted since then, it seems we're all on the same page... perhaps with slightly differing accounts of how much water is in that glass.

[beags]

The Mother Lode could easily be the best solo Thom Yorke song to date... phenominal! This album is really growing on me!!

[nelso330]

The Mother Lode could easily be the best solo Thom Yorke song to date... phenominal! This album is really growing on me!!

Yea I mentioned this song as my favorite from this LP too (good taste ...but all time solo song? I think all of AMOK is better than the best track on TMB

[beags]

Yea I mentioned this song as my favorite from this LP too (good taste ...but all time solo song? I think all of AMOK is better than the best track on TMB

 

But Atoms for Peace isn't Thom solo!! Haha

 

In saying that, i still prefer The Mother Lode to all of AMOK. Except maybe Reverse Running.

[j67ab]

Has anyone stateside received the vinyl yet? It looks like folks in Germany and the UK have.

[Cloudsbelow]

But Atoms for Peace isn't Thom solo!! Haha

 

In saying that, i still prefer The Mother Lode to all of AMOK. Except maybe Reverse Running.

 

I REALLY like 'Harrowdown Hill'  

 

 

 

Has anyone stateside received the vinyl yet? It looks like folks in Germany and the UK have.

 

... and yeah, in Canada and would love to see this show today.. it wont, but dreams can be had.

[kidamnesiac]

I think The Eraser is still his best solo work, but this is definitely better than most of AMOK for me. There's a weirdness to the second half that I really really like.

[toomanyrecords]

I ordered this day one very early on and no shipping confirmation

[niblips]

I ordered this day one very early on and no shipping confirmation

it's my understanding that people are not receiving email notifications.... just sit by your mailbox and wait.

[itsgoodtobefree]

Can anyone log in to order tracking on the website? Mine says details do not match their files or something.

[museummouth]

This really grew on me a lot. Still a bit overpriced IMO.

[ExtraFox]

I just received my shipping email, 6 days after I received the record.