You've got to hand it to Cliff Richard, with his sanctimonious Christian grin, his weird hair that never moves and his fake chumminess that makes you want to take a baseball bat to him.
Richard started as an Elvis tribute act, but when the real rock'n'rollers turned up he quickly retreated into easy- listening, co-opted God and has gone on to become reliably irritating at every turn.
Ever in touch with the kidz, he's now taking the Radiohead approach to releasing his albums. But, as always with Cliff, there's a snide twist. Instead of just passing around the digital begging bowl for his new release, called (wouldn't you know it) Love - The Album, he has set an initial pre-order price of £7.99 (€11.50). That will drop to £3.99 (€5.75), he promises, as more and more people order it.
Those demented enough to pre-order Love - The Album for £7.99 will find out today how much of a refund our Lord of Cliff will deign to give them.
You have to wonder: if those notorious atheists, Radiohead, took the plunge without a £7.99 safety net, why is Cliff showing such little faith? It's usually a concept he's quite big on.
Radiohead's bold move certainly paid off: the band sold a staggering 1.2 million copies of In Rainbows in its first 24 hours of release. Compare that with their last album, Hail to the Thief, which sold only 300,000 copies in its first week of release. Consider also, that Springsteen's Magic went to No 1 in the US charts with 335,000 first-week sales.
It's still not known what the average price paid for In Rainbows was, but even if it's as low as €2 the band will turn a healthy profit - the only deductions they have are the recording costs.
Sure, a lot of people downloaded it for free, but a sizeable bunch did pay what amounts to full price for a digital download, and most commentators agree that the average price will even out at about £3.50 (€5).
Not being barcoded, In Rainbows is ineligible for a chart placing. But that 1.2 million figure would have meant a global No 1. The album will soon receive a traditional release. Undoubtedly it will chart, though at a far lower figure than would have been the case. Radiohead say they will release full sales figures sometime in the new year, but that may or may not break down who paid what.
Already the Radiohead model is not just being copied but improved on. Trent Reznor
of Nine Inch Nails will release his new album (a collaboration with Saul Williams) in the same way. But when you order The Inevitable Rise and Liberation
of NiggyTardust you will see a screen offering two boxes. The first says "I want to support the artists directly involved in the creation of this music" and has a $5 (€3.40) fixed fee. The other box says "I'm not concerned about that. I just want the music".
If you choose the $5 deal you can get the album in either 192kbps MP3, 320kbps MP3, or FLAC lossless audio (the last two are of superior sound quality to 192kbps). If you click the other box, the album is available only in 192kbps MP3.
A tad more sophisticated, you'll agree, than Cliff's "give me the full amount and I might give you some back - but it depends " model.
