Earlier this month, the band Radiohead set up a single, enigmatic website disclosing very little information – other than the invitation to preorder a copy, in one of two formats (mp3 download or shipped CD set), of their latest album In Rainbows which was released on October 10th. Regardless of which choice was made, you were then sent to a featureless purchase page confirming your selection with an empty text box for the price, and a question mark next to that which linked to a page stating simply to name your price.

The cost was to be whatever you thought it was worth. $10? $40? $0? It was up to you. Having such a choice was startling, coming from a for-profit band, even for persons like myself who are accustomed to legally filesharing free music from websites like Jamendo.

As the story unfolded, about 30% of the takers paid nothing, with most others paying varying amounts up to the $1000 which one enthusiastic buyer unloaded for it, and a company that supposedly dropped $10,000 – although whether they were buying the CD set or the album rights was unclear.

It was obvious then that regardless of not having actually asked for any money at all for their work, Radiohead were making good coin. Their ingenious marketing strategy was like a fundraising campaign, but without the publicity. That was supplied automatically as the news spread rapidly through social content sites like Digg and Reddit, and then as news in the mainstream media. Radiohead eliminated the huge expenses normally incurred for advertising and promotion of a new album in this way, and you begin to see how they could come out on top – when there are enough curious takers from a worldwide base of this novel approach who find themselves willing – or perhaps feeling compelled – to pay even a minimal price. People didn’t even have to be fans of the band to be drawn by the mystery, the prospect of a free album, or both.

So why did I pay nothing to download the album? For the simple reason that I had no information on the product. Although the mere presence of the payment amount box on the page nags for you to enter a value greater than zero (and hence perhaps the psychological reason why many did pay at least something), there was no way for me to ascertain a value for the album, given that there were no reviews, song lists, or even a faint indication of the genre of the music. I know next to nothing of the band or their works, and so when presented with the opportunity to take an unknown for free, I did the obvious.

I can say that having listened to it, the downloaded album is a .ZIP file of 10 songs in mp3 format, has a total play time of 42m 38s, and is hard to pin down with a single description of style. It’s rather moody and trancey soft rock, peppy in some tracks and slow and pensive in others, a touch jazzy and very sentimental, and would probably fetch about $20 without objections from a store shelf. Remember, though, that’s for the download – I would undoubtedly rate the CD set with its extra material at a higher value, and just might purchase it soon.

And it’s all LEGAL.

Jamendo is a community website of musicians who have made their albums free for listening and download under the Creative Commons license. The site is based in France and boasts (currently – the numbers are growing) over 59,000 album tracks in over 4,800 albums of just about every style of music, including many kinds this uncultured boy has never heard of. I think its really interesting and addictive, so here’s a writeup for anyone interested.

Cost: $0, or voluntary donation to the artist(s)

Requirements: filesharing software to handle torrent files (uTorrent, aMule, Azureus, BitTorrent, etc)

At the main page, you are presented with three choice boxes – 1 is a sort of FAQ, 2 is titled “Listen” and is filled with a shortlist of style tags, and the third box lets you register. There is no registration required, and is only necessary if you want to create your own on-site playlists or if you are a musician wanting to join the action. So, skipping right to ‘how it works’, let’s select the “Rock” tag.

You now are on a page of albums with the Rock tag, and clicking on each album will give you a page summarizing the album and showing tracks. However, I found that clicking on the track doesn’t open the ‘Jamendo Player’ and play the song, perhaps due to my setup – I get a dialog box that asks how I want to export an M3U playlist. (Maybe because I’m using Firefox?) Back on the Albums page, you will notice that as you mouse over each album, a small tooltip sidebar opens with the options to Download, Listen, Star, Review/Blog or Tell A Friend. I found Listen doesn’t go for me here either. So, this is how I got around it for those having the same issue:

At the top of any Jamendo page, click on ‘Open the Jamendo Player’. You’ll get a tidy popup box with play controls at the top and a left column of options – choose “Jamendo Library”. This will list every available artist in the database on the left, and selecting one displays their albums on the right and songs below. Now you can click on the little speaker beside each song and listen away. Peruse the main browser page of albums, then when you see one that you like, switch over to the Jamendo Player, scroll down to that artist and select the album from there. If you like what you hear, go back to the album page and select to download it.

The browser page will go dim and a popup will appear giving the options to download on BitTorrent or eMule (just click on BitTorrent if you have any torrent program). But before you click it, be sure to select below that whether you want .mp3 or .ogg file format. Next, your torrent program kicks in to handle the rest, and soon the music is all yours. Download speeds from Jamendo are usually lightning fast, too – on average over 400 kbps I’ve found.

Since the music is from a variety of countries and in a variety of languages, it can get confusing if you’re searching for English-language songs. In general, I found that if the album name is in English as well as the description, regardless of country of origin, it’s probably sung in English or a mix. But a lot of the material is also instrumental, so this doesn’t matter.

There’s some damn good music to be had from here. Check it out and enjoy.

www.jamendo.com

London, Ontario. September 12, 2007. Rush performs at the John Labatt Centre in the first Ontario gig of the of the tour for their new album Snakes and Arrows. And I was there. In a damn good seat, too.

This may not seem a big deal to anyone who has taken in concerts before. But for a guy who has loved their music since hearing Tom Sawyer on a little AM transistor radio in 1982 and who has every album they produced, as well as Geddy Lee’s and Alex Lifeson’s solo albums, it is no small thing.

I’m not a typical geek Rush fan. I don’t care to know exhaustive band trivia, nor do I view these gentlemen as demigods. But the art that they have created for the last 34 years is both historic, fascinating and not a little moving. I’ve admired their stories of struggle with adversity and their dedication to their families. I’ve marveled at the structure and lyrics of most of their songs. I’ve felt that some of their tunes missed the expected mark – but discovered in my later years that those same songs hit other marks I couldn’t see at the time. I simply enjoy and appreciate their originality, skill and sense of humour more than any other band I’ve known.

(Photo source: Wikipedia)

The venue was packed, the lights went down, the crowd screamed and cheered their Holy Trinity onto the stage. The sound exploded from the amps with the force of a star going nova. I looked down from the thirteenth row off stage left and experienced disbelief that I was not seeing this on a screen; these were my favorite Three Stooges in flesh and blood, they who first brought Canadian rock to the world like Prometheus bringing fire to mankind, and yet who remain in all respects just normal, rough-at-the-edges middle-class guys.

I looked around at the crowd as the opening number was unleashed and was a bit shocked at the sight. I had expected to see the fans waving arms in the air and jumping around to the music, like the Brazilians on the Rush In Rio DVD. But they all just stood there on the floor and sat in the stands, nodding their heads to the rhythm. ‘Oh my God,’ I wondered aloud. ‘Why are they so reserved? And what are the Three gonna think, seeing such a placid crowd?‘

As time went on, the crowd did slowly loosen up. It took me a while to figure out the reason for the delayed reaction: most of the audience were in their 30’s or older. We’re more laid back now. Mellowed out. The o-word… o-l-d-e-r?

Piss on that, I said, and started hollering, singing along, pumping my fists and clapping my hands in the air after each number. They came here to rock us, and I decided to let it go.

What was more heartwarming was the fact that many of these people were obviously parents – they had their teenage kids with them. And the kids were getting into it. Air drumming with Neil, playing invisible guitars with Geddy and Alex, finding the groove in their ma and pa’s kinda beat, and screaming their approval.

And thus I saw demonstrated in person that Rush are family. They are kid safe. Their lyrics are clean and deep, meaningful and provocative – instead of enticing your teen to try drugs, sex or violence, they coax you to ‘look in, look out, look around’, as their song Force Ten puts it. (That’s right, Mom, I wasn’t just listening to loud prog rock when I lived at home, I was introspecting – honestly.)

All in all, it was an amazing time. Thank you, Rush, for everything. Years of everything.

And especially thanks to my best friend Kevin R. who I went with – who stunned me right after the Snakes and Arrows tour announcement by presenting me with ticket receipts in an envelope and saying to me, “I’ve decided to make you an appointment. And there’ll be no excuses. I figured it was about time you went.’

And to think I feared for a moment opening the envelope that he had booked a vasectomy for me on behalf of my wife.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On a side note, I snapped this shot of a sign in front of the Esso station beside Hwy. 401 at Ingersoll on the way to London.

I guess some gas stations really are more friendly. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to get fully serviced.