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AP Business writer Alex Vega penned a great story about how much fans of the band Radiohead are willing to pay for the rock bands latest release:

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Radiohead let its fans decide how much to pay for a digital copy of the band’s latest release, “In Rainbows,” and more than half of those who downloaded the album chose to pay nothing, according to a study by a consumer research firm.

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.
Radiohead broke with its past practice of releasing its music in CD format and through a major record label when it released its seventh studio album online itself. The biggest wrinkle was the band’s decision to let fans pay as much or as little as they wanted to download a copy.

The results of the study were drawn from data gathered from a few hundred people who are part of comScore’s database of 2 million computer users worldwide. The firm, which has permission to monitor the computer users’ online behavior, did not provide a margin of error for the study’s results.

Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 29, about 1.2 million people visited the Web site the band set up for fans to download the album, comScore said Monday. The research firm did not say how many people in its study actually bought the album.
Among U.S. residents, about 40 percent who downloaded the album paid to do so. Their average payment was $8.05, the firm said.

Some 36 percent of the fans outside the U.S. who downloaded the album opted to pay; on average, those fans paid $4.64, according to the study.

Radiohead’s U.S.-based publicist said Tuesday the band had no comment on the study.

The online release sent shock waves through the recording industry, with some hailing it as a shrewd move at a time of declining CD sales industry wide and others writing it off as a publicity stunt that amounted to the band giving away its music.
The band, which also offered fans the option of buying a lavish box set for about $82, plans to release the album in CD format some time next year.

I have been saying for some time that the record labels are in trouble. Big trouble. Huge trouble. Gargantuan trouble. Garth Brooks owns his entire catalog and has made and completed a deal with Wal-Mart. He now releases another greatest hits CD with a few new tracks on it and no label has a taste. Radiohead gave no label a taste. Soon artists are going to go direct to iTunes, Amazon, and the other online distributors. Some labels are trying to tap into the artists touring as another source of revenue. This is traditionally all the artists money, less production costs. Ticket prices for shows will start to come down too. Thanks to Garth. No ticket price for any of the Kansas City concerts was more than $32.50. Sure, some ticket brokers have gotten a hold of some and have made a commodity out of the tickets, but as a rule, the ticket prices were intentionally low. Just as the Eagles set the tone for high ticket prices on the Hell Freezes Over Tour, Garth will bring those ticket prices down.

Radiohead may be setting a new example: Pay what you want… we’ll make more.

This is going to be good to watch : )

In the tradition of the Red Sneaker Diaries, here is some of the backstage happenings from the Kenny Chesney, Sugarland, Pat Green concert last night.

Pat Green – Very cordial, gracious, and kind. Pat took the time to really talk with all of the Y100 listeners lucky enough to go back stage.

Kenny Chesney – Yes, he’s really that short… but a really nice guy. His time to meet was short as he was not quite totally ready for his performance. By that I mean, he still has make-up, and wardrobe to do.

Sugarland – This was strange. There were two types of “backstage passes.” One had a dot on it and the others didn’t. What made it strange as that if you had a dot on your pass you were able to take a picture with Sugarland by yourself. If you had no dot on your pass, you had to take a picture with someone else. Ok, so no big deal there, except you couldn’t take the picture with your personal camera. The road manager had to take the picture with her camera and then within a few days you could go to Sugarland’s website and download the picture. So.. not your camera, manager takes the picture… not a good way to win fans. Those backstage were slightly irritated and understandably so.

There’s some of the scoop from back stage.

Peruse the prose!

Pat Green and Kenny Chesney performed at the Verizon Amphitheater tonight. Great show. Both guys are real class acts. Here are a few pix just to let you in on the fun: