Huck

A lot has been said about Mike Huckabee being the most desirable Republican candidate for President by Democrats because they think he is the most beatable. In terms of desirability Mike Huckabee also has every other candidate beat on the baseball card front.

If you look at the listings of sellers and buyers there is a nice cross section. His autograph cards (shown above) are easily selling for more than $100 making them some of the most desirable auto cards of the set.

Radiohead -- House of Cards
This is from In Rainbows for which I am a marketing department's dream as I paid for the download and bought the physical album.

More on Radiohead & In Rainbows

The Sunday New Yawk Times has a very good article about In Rainbows. It is more about the process of the process of making the album in terms of refining the songs rather than the decision to go with a "pay what you want" economic model. It's well worth the read.


Radiohead -- Jigsaw Falling Into Place

The Shame

I do feel a little shamed on being beaten to the punch on Radiohead news and a little stupid for paying for In Rainbows and supporting all you free-loaders (or free down-loaders, hardy har har)...

Although, I did receive an email from one of my professors in my graduate program who shed some light on the subject and made me feel there was some benefit to the In Rainbows experiment.

"Personally, I paid $0.00.

And I had never listened to Radiohead before..."

If a whole new group of people are now Radiohead fans I'm glad they did it...and Radiohead are smarter than all of us...but we knew that already didn't we?

Outside of this, it has been an interesting Radiohead week for me anyway...I've got about 10,000 songs on my mp3 player and I always have it on shuffle...I enjoying finding the connections between songs that you would never associate otherwise...While listening on Monday three songs in a row were Radiohead a pretty interesting statistical feat and two of the three were the same song, one being the album version and one being a live bootleg version.

The song was "A Punchup At A Wedding" from Hail to the Thief which has never been one of my favorites...maybe I just wasn't ready for it yet...The studio version came first and the then the live version followed and something sort of clicked for me...I think it might all be in Colin Greenwood's bass line of the live version which reminds me a little bit of the bass line on Interpol's "Public Pervert" [Side note: re-examine that song if you can...and adjust your stereo to high bass and lower the volume of everything else if possible...outstanding]...

The song took a new life for me...plus I had forgotten that for Hail to the Thief Radiohead gave each song essentially a 2nd title...for "A Punchup At A Wedding" the bonus title is "No No No No No No No No" and I can just hear the bride saying it...maybe getting louder with each successive "No."

Two days later, by coincidence, a classmate told me a story about how a fight had nearly broken out at her wedding between members of her family...I can hear her saying "No No No No No No No No."

Radiohead -- A Punchup At A Wedding (No No No No No No No No)

Radiohead -- A Punchup At A Wedding (Live at Earl's Court)

Okay, download In Rainbows for free you bastards here...or buy all of Radiohead's Capitol/EMI records in one set here.

Music for Nothing, Chicks for Free

Apparently, most fans took Radiohead at their word when the group made "In Rainbows" available for any price the fans were willing to pay. From Time:

Some 62 percent of the people who downloaded "In Rainbows" in a four-week period last month opted not to pay the British alt-rockers a cent. But the remaining 38 percent voluntarily paid an average of $6, according to the study by comScore Inc.

I don't know which number is more impressive: 62 or 38. Of all the people that downloaded the album, four-in-ten said, "No really. I want to pay you money for this music even though you are willing to give it to me for free." Where else does that happen in life?

For more from Blugold Matt on Radiohead and In Rainbows, see here, here and here.

Dire Straits, Money for Nothing.



Just think, when this music video came out, it was the height of technological innovation. In 25 years, we have gotten to the point that bands can give away music for free and presumably make a profit.

Album 7

I just pre-ordered Album 7 from Radiohead...officially titled In Rainbows. In my earlier post about the news of the release I didn't mention that there is no "official price" and you can pay whatever you think if fair. A very interesting idea considering a typical record contract [for a band of Radiohead stature] would give the band between $2-3 a CD. Now that Radiohead is record company free, nearly the entire purchase price goes straight to Thom and the Boys.

That being said, I bought my copy for $12.99 [6.38 pounds + a .45 pound service fee]. I am more than happy with this because I had given up hope for any new Radiohead release this year and I love the fact that I learned about the release and get in in under a week and a half. I am not the typical buyer however as I will happily pay for the downloads and then buy the set that comes out in December...

The confirmation email they sent me says that I will receive another email on the 10th...tick tock...tick tock