Noel Gallagher: "Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' was free marketing"

Jul 9, 2008

Noel Gallagher believes that Radiohead's method of inviting fans to pay whatever they felt recent album In Rainbows was worth was a "free marketing" ploy.

Gallagher explained: "To be honest, to me it looked like marketing - a great way of getting a load of marketing for free really. But good for them. That's what they do, they're rebels and outsiders." Apart from the rebellious bit (no doubt said with tongue firmly inside cheek), Noel has a point. For starters, the average price paid for In Rainbows was around the £4 mark. Not as much as a cd, maybe, but with few of the overheads. It also drew many people to the band's website, where they were able to procure the super deluxe extravaganza version which was available for the princely sum of £40. While seen by many analysts as a soon to be influential move in the way in which bands distribute their music, it is difficult to escape the feeling that the recent success of Radiohead and The Charlatans (who gave their new album away for free via XFM) will only serve to make the rich and established richer and establisheder. Radiohead could afford to take the potential financial hit, knowing that this would easily be offset by the expensive version. The Charlatans meanwhile, having lost the creative plot the minute they attempted reggae (in Tim Burgess' head it must have sounded like Toot and the Maytals; to the rest of us like UB40 on a particularly cod Jamaican day), had nothing to lose. Many of their disillusioned fanbase will have downloaded You Cross My Path out of a combination of curiosity, nostalgia and tightness. This led to their new tour (undoubtedly for a band like The Charlatans, their most lucrative outlet) selling big venues quicker than they had done in years.

Of course, there is an argument that everyone's a winner from such deals, as fans have access to more music for free, but altruistic these bands are not. And it helps new bands not a jot. So, in conclusion, can Gallagher see Oasis treading a similar tech and market savvy path? "That's not our bag," he said. "I didn't spend a year in the most expensive studio in England, with the most expensive producer in America, and the most expensive graphic designer in London to then give it away. Fuck that."

Well there you go. Oasis' 6th studio album Dig Out Your Soul will be released on October 6th. Apparently there are 5 different versions. None of them are free though.

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