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Robert Smith says more about Radiohead release
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 4 March 2009
Robert Smith has been having another go at trying to explain what he meant, after he appeared to criticise Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ pay-what-you-want scheme.
As previously reported, the Cure man was quoted as saying that he “disagreed violently” with the way the album was released, but now he has reacted to the media response to his comments and clarified via his blog that it wasn’t especially an attack on Radiohead, though he’s sticking to his point, which is basically that giving music away for free devalues it.
Explaining that what he is questioning is the “dumb acceptance of the ‘Freemart is the new paradigm – that’s just the way it is’ mantra”, he goes on: “These idiot critics have tried very hard to turn my general point – a point I made using Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows: pay what you want’ marketing ruse [as an example] as it is the most widely known example – into a mock shock horror: ‘how dare anyone question the famously independent and anti-capitalist Radiohead, they sell more ‘product’ than The Cure so their strategy obviously ‘worked’ (huh?!!)… and anyway, Robert Smith is way too old to comment on contemporary culture” moment…'”
The full rant is here, if you want to read it: thecure.com/blog/default.aspx?nid=20628. It’s all in upper case, though, so don’t say you weren’t warned.
