Radiohead Steps Out

Props to Radiohead for being the first big band to do it themselves. Shame on everyone else for not beating them to the punch. The reality is that Radiohead is doing nothing new, what they are doing has been done for years by many artists but virtually all of them smaller artists truly committed to their art and divorced from the commerce of it. Divorced, in that they are not looking to get rich. The irony is that general consensus says that the artists are not business people and therefore make dumb mistakes (i.e. Radiohead not being prepared for the traffic and their site running slower then George W's brain). I would beg to differ this point because the TRUE artist, the ones who do this because they know nothing else, whose bodies have to do this, who give birth to songs are the ones who have been pushing the "model" forward. They do not care about the fame and money. They just want a check so they can pay the bills so they can create some more art. They are astounding business people because they do it out of necessity. They are the ones who we should look to in this new era, they have the new business model. The new business model is not about tonnage. It is all about the niche. It is all about the tight community. Short term thinking is about how many friends you have on myspace. Long term thinking is about how many fans you have who are willing to put money in your digital tip jar every time they take one of your songs. Radiohead does not need their record label and neither do you...if you are an artist.