Radiohead album comes out in 10 days

Well, just the other day I was thinking … when’s the next Radiohead album coming out? Turns out, in a less than two weeks … all of the sudden.

In a radical move, Radiohead is releasing its seventh studio release “In Rainbows” on Oct. 10. The “radical” part of it is this — they’re putting it on the Internet, and the price tag is “whatever you want to pay for it.”

The reasoning, Radiohead figures those who offer 5 cents or something equally low are the same people who would have stolen it or pirated it for free.

Click here for a link to the story from Time Magazine’s Web site.
From the article: “In Rainbows will be released as a digital download available only via the band’s web site, Radiohead.com. There’s no label or distribution partner to cut into the band’s profits — but then there may not be any profits. Drop In Rainbows’ 15 songs into the on-line checkout basket and a question mark pops up where the price would normally be. Click it, and the prompt “It’s Up To You” appears. Click again and it refreshes with the words “It’s Really Up To You” — and really, it is. It’s the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it’s perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all.”

My thoughts? This is probably brilliant. Then again, Radiohead’s a band that’s pretty much waved its middle finger at “the norm” in the music industry. They’re a band I really got into after OK Computer’s release, and they’re a band I’ve defended after recent albums didn’t strike a “popular” chord with a lot of American fans.

So how much would I pay for a Radiohead album (which, by the way, I’m completely spoiler-free from)? I don’t know, to be honest. I guess I want this move to work for them, so I may pay the full “whatever albums cost” price.

I guess I’ll make that decision when I get there.

Sunday column: Thanks to a teacher

My first few years of college were a blur … a wonderful, wonderful blur.
But I won’t get into that.
My decision to become a journalism major didn’t come until after I transferred from small Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, to the even-smaller Texas A&M-Commerce. And it wasn’t until my second semester of journalism that college wasn’t such a blur anymore.
And it’s really all thanks to one person.
If you ask James Ragland today who Billy Liggett is, he’ll probably remember that name … oh yeah, that’s the kid I taught way back in the late 90s.
Ask me who James Ragland is, however, and my answer will be this:
He’s the reason I’m here today.
Ragland isn’t even a professor, really. A successful and very well-respected columnist for the Dallas Morning News, he took on the challenge of teaching a few journalism classes in Commerce, located about half an hour from Big D, in 1999.
Teaching was more a side job … a hobby for him.
But from Day 1, you got the feeling he was a natural. He taught from experience rather than reading from a textbook. For every challenge presented to us, he gave us a story of when that challenge actually happened to him.
And just as my class got a good feel for him, Ragland got a good feel for us early on. In every college class, there are those who are there to learn and those who’re just there for the credits.
I didn’t know why I was there, but James Ragland did. After one of my first published stories, he took me aside after a class once and told me I had a talent for what I did.
Just a slight compliment, he probably thought.
Well, it meant the world to me.
Suddenly, I went from “guy who thought college was about parties and girls” to “guy who possibly had a career ahead of him … who, yeah, still liked parties and girls.”
His influence went beyond the compliment. During a visit by the publisher of the Arlington Morning News, Ragland introduced me to his friend afterward and mentioned that I had a future in journalism. I instantly wondered what my name would look like in an Arlington byline.
But I started much smaller. I began as a cops reporter for a daily newspaper about the size of this one. I was still in college when I began working, but Ragland was gone by then. Through his columns, though, he continued to teach me.
Go to Ragland’s online bio at The Morning News, and you’ll see what he feels is the secret of good column writing:
“Write thoughtfully and provocatively about issues and people that readers do or should care about. Get readers to think or feel something when they read your work. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty by doing some digging of your own. Know your audience, and listen.”
His columns range from politics to human interest stories, from sports to civil rights.
In other words, he knows his audience, and he writes what he feels they want to read.
Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
It’s been nearly eight years since I sat in Ragland’s classroom, and I couldn’t be happier with my career course so far.
And I’m breaking one of the rules Ragland taught me by waiting until the end of this column to finally get to my point … which is this:
All of my success in this field, I owe to a teacher.
I’ve been asked to speak to a group of teachers later in October, and I’ve been wracking my brain about what to talk about. That’s when all of this hit me.
There is no job more important, no position of authority that can have as big of an impact as that of a teacher.
If I have any advice to teachers, I just hope they realize their words can completely change a life.
That’s a huge responsibility. And while I’m not an actual teacher, I’ve made it a habit over the years to tell young reporters when I think they have talent. Some probably think I’m just trying to get them to work harder … but hopefully the others realize I see in them what James Ragland saw in me.
Ragland doesn’t know I’m writing this about him, and unless he decides to look me up one day, he probably never will.
But he knows his impact. I send him e-mails with each career change, with each milestone.
But the best thing I could do for him is to pass on what he taught me to others. I would think that’s all any teacher would want.