Radiohead Is Evil, Part 519 Or Paul Van Dyk Needs To Sell More Records

Say what you will about Radiohead and the industry impact of their pay-what-you-want marketing of their most recent album In Rainbows, but one thing is undeniable: nearly two years after the fact, people still won’t shut up about it. That’s gotta count for something, no?

DJ Paul Van Dyk has apparently not been getting enough heat on his recently-released Best Of album. The Grammy-winning spinner launched a sagging-sales assault at Radiohead in a recent video interview with Time Out Chicago about their pay-what-you-want model for their latest release, In Rainbows.

Taking a page from the Attention Whore/Beef Starters notebook of Mr. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Van Dyk launched a tirade against Radiohead during the interview, saying it was easy for the multi-platinum superstars to pull this kind of stunt, but it’s ultimately  impossible for artists with smaller followings, or none at all, to do such a thing. He’s right there, but things got interesting when Van Dyk suggested that Radiohead should take a page from the Robin Hood book: rather than bank the money their devoted fans shell out, turn and give it to the smaller up-and-comer bands:

Bands like Radiohead who basically made millions and millions and millions of dollars back in the days when there were no download sites. They can easily say, “Hey whatever, we don’t need the money,” just put it out there. It’s such an easy gesture for them. But at the end of the day those young talented bands, they have to live off every single dollar they earn. They can’t just give it away. And this is something where I believe that thing that Radiohead did was absolutely counterproductive for developing music and for any artist in the world. And was very selfish. But the thing is, you just have to see the bigger picture. It’s not like they just give their music away for free to somebody. I mean, they don’t need that money, fair enough, so why not. But in return, what would have been a fair gesture is saying, “Okay you pay for my record but I don’t take the money, I give it to the young bands, I give it to whoever supports interesting new music.”

I’m all for helping out the little guy, but surely there’s a better way then outright attaching a vacuum hose to your bank account, no? Who decides where these funds go? And who the hell would ever be that generous?

Of course, Van Dyk wasn’t exactly the first inferior-buzz-inducing artist to lash out at the strange & new. You should recognize the formula by now. The Cure’s Robert Smith nearly smeared his makeup when he told Music Radar last year that he “disagreed violently” with Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want design: “You can’t allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don’t consider what you do to have any value at all and that’s nonsense. If I put a value on my music and no one’s prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan, it can’t work.”

Needless to say, Smith doesn’t exactly have a clue. While never fully disclosing specifics, Radiohead made more money from downloads of In Rainbows alone than they did off the entire combined sales of their previous album, Hail To The Thief. Furthermore, guitarist Jonny Greenwood openly stated at the time that the entire scheme wasn’t to quantify the music, but to question its value.

“It’s fun to make people stop for a few seconds and think about what music is worth,” he said. “That’s just an interesting question to ask people.”

Obviously this isn’t a “one size fits all” business model. It wouldn’t work for everyone, even among top-billing acts, but with more label-alternative options becoming available every day, it seems that those griping the loudest about the passing of the old guard are the ones that either  couldn’t sell records anymore if their lives depended on it (that means you, Robert), or are simply too old/impatient/attached to some obsolete “punk” ethos to take the time to acknowledge and digest the bona fide revolution that’s taking place in the music industry today.

Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon took things two or three steps further, claiming that Radiohead’s new approach was all just a cynical marketing ploy that made smaller, poorer bands look bad.

“They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out,” Gordon said in an interview with the Guardian last month, while making the rounds on yet another new Sonic Youth album that only Eddie Vedder and about 500 loyally deaf fans will buy. “It seemed really community-oriented but it wasn’t catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever.”

Come on, Kim, put those sour grapes away and admit how you really feel. “It was a good marketing ploy and I wish I’d thought of it!” (Exactly.) “But we’re not in that position either. We might not have been able to put out a record for another couple of years if we’d done it ourselves: it’s a lot of work. And it takes away from the actual music making.” A slight dig on the way out the door before plugging her band’s new album, which was released four days after the interview went to press.