First the book took forever getting here. Then on Thursday I took a look at one word in the title. By Friday I had made it to the back cover. Finally today I actually cracked open the book and started from page one. (Page ix, actually.) In an unsigned prologue titled “1 Step,” the editors write:

We were about to publish this book without a price and ask Radiohead fans to pay what they want for it. But then we remembered. While the music industry was up-ended in 2007 by the debut of In Rainbows and other albums distributed by artists themselves, the world of book publishing remains a few steps behind. For now, at least.

It’s meant as a tongue-in-cheek opening salvo, but near the undercurrents graze a few sacred cows that really need some grill marks and steak sauce: “The recording industry needs revolutionizing.” (Or its corollary: “The record companies all need to be run out of town.”) “Radiohead’s distribution of In Rainbows started that revolution.” “Self-publication is somehow new to either music or book publishing.”

Taking the second part first — aside from what may just be a vocal minority — the distribution of In Rainbows, and the music of In Rainbows itself, was met with a deafening “feh!” Surely a revolution would have by now seen a second A-list artist digitally release an LP, with compensation held strictly to the honor system. Maybe a third. And as for the word that the brick-and-mortar release of In Rainbows was different — indeed superior — to the (let’s call it what it is) free online sampler? This should not have surprised anyone. If Radiohead had given away OK Computer free of charge? Yeah, that would have been newsworthy. But giving away a less-than-whole version of a less-than-whole LP only seemed like cutting their wallet off to spite their pants pocket.

Or worse: gimmicky.

The urge will be to point out Ghosts I-IV by Nine Inch Nails, and other soft copy releases. But most of us had been purchasing music in MP3 format for years before the release of In Rainbows; the only difference was the state-your-own price. It will be instructive to watch how Radiohead distributes their next LP. If it isn’t at least a fixed rate per track, I’ll apologize for the skepticism.

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“Self-publication is somehow new to either music or book publishing.”

Q: What do Led Zeppelin, The Prodigy, The Dandy Warhols and Mötley Crüe all have in common?

A: These artists have all formed their own independent labels to circumvent the indentured servitude, hassles, expense, and the sheer creative surrender inherent in a recording contract. Properly speaking, Mötley Crüe forged two record labels, Leathür Records and Mötley Records. The casual reader has to wonder if the third company will be named Ümläüt Ïndüstrïës. We’ll see. But if Crüe can do it…

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“The recording industry needs revolutionizing.” Or, “The record companies all need to be run out of town.”

Rock may stink up the room when trying to make political statements, but rock is often at its absolute (and loudest, and most defiant, and most convincing) best when attacking the very record labels that distribute their material and coordinate their world tours. Pink Floyd dealt a cerebral one-two with “Have a Cigar” and “Welcome to the Machine.” The Sex Pistols dispensed with the subtleties on the track “EMI.” And there’s always Amanda Palmer, who took both approaches at once:

But frankly — and this was probably simple naivete on my part — I had no idea of the extent of the animosity between contractor and contractee until Patrick, Tobias and I started blogging. I chose those words intentionally: contractor, contractee. Both sides of the recording contract owe their existence to delivering new, groundbreaking music to the listener. Both sides often succeed, and both often fail. And both sides find the other a chronic, seething pain in the ass.

But only one side spends their time advertising their heartburn and coming up with esoteric theory and pretentious Obi-Wan Kenobi claptrap regarding the nature of money and of the nature of music and music ownership.

The sad fact is, if you enjoy music and would like to hear more, we require some kind of system to produce it and get everybody paid, so that musicians and record company execs alike don’t bugger off and join the peace corps. The current system — however flawed — still works well enough, thank you very much, otherwise you’d have never heard of Arcade Fire, Beirut, DeVotchKa, The Decemberists, System of a Down, Pink Floyd or Radiohead, and the book Radiohead and Philosophy would simply not exist. Agreed, for every Mars Volta we get ten Lindsay Lohans, but if that bothers you just do what I do and just don’t listen to the ten Lindsay Lohans. Yet musicians — talented, intelligent musicians — such as Jonathan Davis of Korn or Chris Corner of IAMX are not content to point out the design flaws in The Machine and ignore the musical waste … or for that matter they are also not content to simply impugn all of capitalism herself. Instead, putting up with deadlines and promotional obligations and obnoxious producers has led them to conclude that the ancient concept of money as a medium of exchange is moral rot. Use the force, Luke.

Hell, work as I do for a building subcontractor, sometimes I grow weary of prime contractors and their 72-hour notices to comply, just as U2 probably gets tired of breathing the same Interscope air as, say, the bantamweight creation Pussycat Dolls, but you don’t see me petitioning to reverse the agricultural revolution and return our 7 billion people to a hunter-gatherer tradition. No doubt it wouldn’t carry as much credence if I did, because musicians are charismatic, influential folk who handle microphones for a living. Public speaking is their thing: it is easy to get swept up by their vapors. Record company glad-hands have no vapors. Nobody ever falls for their line, nor should they. But anti-corporatism for its own sake in postmodern, agnostic, enlightened, merit-based 2009? Yawn. Don’t buy it. Not even for $0.00.

One caveat. While it is not true that the record companies need to be run out of town, something, indeed, is running them out of town anyway: economics. Thom Yorke touched on this when he spoke of the titular LP In Rainbows: “It probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘F___ you’ to this decaying business model.” Their absurd file-sharing lawsuits notwithstanding, record label employees aren’t mean-spirited fascist dictators who waterboard cats and fire rockets at Santa Claus. But they are nevertheless becoming obsolete. An industry cannot exist unless it adds value to something, and the value that record labels have traditionally added to the unusual resource known loosely as “music” has been production, promotion, and distribution. Physical distribution is literally a ghost anymore and can be accomplished by a five-year-old with a dial-up connection. The barriers to self-production and self-promotion are similarly coming down. The business model is not decaying as much as it is vanishing. Take comfort in the fact that record labels as you know them should soon fall extinct.

And enough criticism already. So far I have absolutely enjoyed the book, and I’m ready to prove it. Our next post deals with (…drum roll, please…) this Greek-looking word.

Note that this post is one part in a series. To view all posts in the series, start here.