Radiohead haven't killed the record companies just yet

Just as Britney Spears has become the tabloids' whipping-boy (girl?) as she lurches from one pop-diva disaster to another, predicting the imminent and hopefully painful death of the music industry has become a favourite past-time of business publications – of which ZDNet.co.uk is no exception.

Anyone who loves technology and the internet specifically also hates what the internet hates and what the internet hates more than anything – is a middle man. And by god you have to hate them when you read stories about the Minnesota women who was fined $220,000 for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa. (Note to record company executives – when you are old and infirmed this is not the best way to go if you don't want to be left out in the snow.)

The fact that Radiohead are opting to let punters choose how much to buy their album for online has been touted as the death-knell for established distribution channels – and I have to admit to getting caught up in the hype too. However, I have since found out that Radiohead are going to release the album on CD through established channels next year, and are offering a gift-box – containing vinyl of all things, to go alongside the pay-as-much-as-you-like download option tomorrow.

Unfortunately – despite the hype around Radiohead – the walls of the music industry aren't going to fall any time soon – not so long as as there are millions of people who still want to buy bland music from ASDA (or WalMart if you're a bland American)– and there are still a lot of people who like to do that.

What prompted all this muso musing was being taken along to a round-table event this afternoon run by Sellaband.com (at the curiously named Hospital in Covent Garden – showing my ignorance here cos there were no doctors or nurses or beds – just lots of new media types on MacBooks – but guess the building was something health related in its past). The site claims to be trying to use the internet – and social networking - to disrupt the traditional A&R process. Instead of A&R men trawling around gigs – looking for the next big thing – bands can sign up to the site for free and then encourage “Believers” or fans to invest in them in buy buying $10 chunks. Once the band has $50,000 worth of believer money – they get to make an album – the profits of which are then split between the believers, the artist and Sellaband. Now there are all sorts of financial details here of which I don't have the time or expertise to go into.

However on the plus side it generally seems like a innovative approach to making and distributing music – and one of the Sellaband artists, Mark Maclaine from Second Person, was certainly keen to promote it to the journalists present (but then he would) – and extol the benefits of having a group of 75 believers pushing his band and even organising concerts in Paris.

But while Sellaband appears disruptive, and dangerous to the record companies on some levels – effectively all it is really doing at one level is helping to reduce the costs to record companies of the A&R process. It still felt like the end goal of Second Person and the other artists on Sellaband was to get signed by one of the big record companies and get the record contract that has been the standard way for artists to “make it” for years. I may be wrong – and I haven't explored Sellaband's business model thoroughly enough – but there doesn't seem to be a long term strategy mapped out for how the artists can operate outside of the traditional music business in the long term. I guess knowing that you have Sellaband believers behind you and a certain amount of success puts artists in a better bargaining position – and there is a lot to be said for that.

However, Sellaband still hangs onto the band's master tapes for a year and I was still struck that Mark from Second Person was still essentially a young – and relatively inexperienced guy – having to do a deal with experienced middle men – in this case Sellaband – who's board consists of lots of ex- big label executives. The model isn't quite the internet ideal of the artist being able to deal directly with the public – with no hoops to jump through or middle-men to pay – but maybe we're not quite ready for that yet. We still need the reassurance of the crafted marketing and PR that a big label can provide.