Radiohead review

Now that the Radiohead album has been released, here is my view of things:

There was another, overlooked, reason why Radiohead might have put their album out for download with people choosing how to much to pay. It is rubbish.

There are a couple of songs that the most die-hard fan may like, such as the echoes of the peaks in melancholy and the stressful cacophonies that could both be found filling space on their previous albums. But this is nothing like their previous best - none of the achingly good songs that could be found on Pablo Honey, and none of the sense of journey (and also beltingly good songs) from The Bends or OK Computer.

I am left wondering if they put it out in that way as an experiment because they weren't happy with it as an album. Or perhaps they lost it and descended into a haze, taking Pete Doherty's place now that he is rumoured to have cleaned up.

Economists are very good at discussing how something is going to turn out using economic theories, and then - when they are wrong - admitting it and citing another, overlooked, theory about why that was. The academic equivalent of falling in your sword to protect your subject. In that spirit, I suppose that this is another lesson in economics - the 2001 nobel prize winning theory about pricing in used cars. The theory goes that whatever the car, the possibility of it being a lemon (i.e. a dud) is factored in, but to varying degrees according to the certainty. This will have been the case here. If they do publish the purchasing data for people to study, it will be very interesting to see how much the price goes down afterwards.

Following on

I was planning yesterday to have put the whole thing to bed, but some emails that I have had today about yesterday's post are worth discussing.

Firstly, there is a point to clarify: when I say that it is a good thing if banks are able to go to the wall occasionally, I do not mean this because I and all capitalists are evil. I mean it because that reinforces the incentive that the management have to guard against the risk of their bank collapsing. If banks could never collapse (which is looking like a danger under Brown), then there is much less incentive for them to manage their risks prudently. This would harm shareholders (many of which are your pensions, not just evil capitalists) as well as customers (through less competitive and more reckless banks).

Secondly, a former colleague of mine was laughing about the idea of the FSA supervisor of NR ensuring that the last liquidity return was appropriately filed in triplicate, and not noticing the glaring holes in the figures. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that week's one-to-one with their line manager. My ex colleague also admitted that he had shares in Northern Rock - well done, old friend, more cash down the pan. Maybe you should put yours under the mattress.

Finally, the implications for Gordon Brown are serious. Over this, and the economic climate generally, he is now being found out as a con artist over his claim to be the prudent manager of the economy. With levels of disposable income now lower than before Labour went into power, the economy's growth predictions being slashed and taxes still going up, the picture is looking far from rosy.

So, to finish, a basic lesson in economy management for the badger. When the economy is taking a nose-dive, putting taxes up in order to increase spending will worsen, not improve, that cycle. If you would like any further advice Mr Darling, you can email me on Major Gripe at Googlemail dot com.

Factualising

Never let a fact get in the way of a good story, the adage goes. Metro took this to another level this morning - never let the story get in the way of a fact. In an article entitled 'young use 'sharks' to buy booze', they wrote:

Young people are using loan sharks to find pin crawls and pay for new clothes. A total of 77 per cent of young adults have been in debt by their 24th birthday and 20 per cent have been left with £50 a month or less to live on after their debt repayments, a survey by young people's charity Rainer showed. Spokesman David Charter said: 'Significantly, 15 per cent
said they had "other" debt aside from normal sources. This could be from loan sharks.'

Yes, David, it could. It could also be from friends, from credit unions or a number of places. We don't have any definition of what you define as normal sources. Nonetheless, your comment is valid - it could be from sharks. You and I are fine, we have no quarrel, David. My quarrel is withMetro. There is sensationalising, and twisting facts, and then there is this. Such is the contempt for your readers that you haven't even bothered to disguise the doubt that your own quote casts on the 'fact' that you so confidently assert.

The attempt to portray the young in this light is becoming depressingly common. Yes, young people drink and many outlive their means. When was this not true? They're young. But they also have to cope with debts like never before as they try to get through university or buy a tiny place to live.

Forgive them a but of fun now, because when they (and everyone under 30) are paying the price of the wealth transfer to the baby boomer generation for the next 40 years, they will be able to have none.

Record breakers

I have been out of touch for a couple of days and have only today found that Radiohead are letting people choose how much (if anything) to pay for their new album. I won't bore you with the fascination this causes from an economist's point of view because many, many others have already done that. I also won't do it because I'm not an economist. Let's just say that two noteworthy entries are The Economist and Vidico's piece too. It is really fascinating from an economics perspective, but I'll spare you that and just say that I hope that they publish the data on the average price paid as well as the distribution of prices.

What interests me most about this is how it might change the landscape for music publishing. Chris Anderson wrote in The Long Tail about technology democratizing the means of production, the internet democratizing the means of distribution and web 2.0 creating ways for content to find enthusiasts - meaning that people's tastes end up as niches of one. This has been possible for a number of obscure bands, and The Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen are the two most obvious examples of how it is possible to become a big hit through this channel today.

If it becomes the norm for bands to publish music independently of record labels then the labels will be severely undermined - perhaps permanently. What is most interesting is that this will be a temporary state. In personal lines insurance, my current area, the move from brokers to direct insurers was significant. Now that there are so many direct insurers, shopping around becomes very labour intensive. Enter Money Supermarket, Confused.com and a host of other aggregators that claim to simplify the job for you. There are so many aggregators doing this now that there is even speculation that there will be an aggregator of aggregators soon.

This is a demonstration of the theory that all markets end up intermediated. If musicians start to publish independently on a significant scale, that market will end up intermediated again. There would be a market for a music aggregator just to allow you to sift through the vast choice. iTunes and others would soon find their deals with record labels inadequate and would need to change their business model fundamentally.

I will be watching the Radiohead album launch with great interest.