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The days of the £12.99 CD are over.

Who is responsible – well apart from the tax free island of Jersey, Berners-Lee, Napster, Stephen Jobs, limewire, the Romans…

No. It’s the customer.

They want more choice, convenience, greater value and above all – they still want experience. Let’s face it the people who used to file vinyl in alphabetical order are now the same people who create playlist upon playlist – the difference being that apple just made the filing easier.

So in no particular order here they are:

Oasis one-play taster of ‘Heathen Chemistry’ – thank god

A CD free with The Guardian that had unique one-play technology magically painted over its shiny surface.

All in all a smart way to ‘try before you buy’. Maybe Oasis were hoping that if you bought the album it would grow on you. It never did.

In Rainbows (not the one with Bungal)

Radiohead cut-out the middlemen by flogging their album based on whatever the public wanted to pay for it. Apparently the average was £4, so odds are that they made well over the norm. So both Radiohead and the customer came up trumps. Even smarter was (in the great tradition of George Lucas) releasing a special edition for £40 and a CD format at £8.99. Yes, this approach has polarised the music industry, and I still feel guilty for paying £2 – but it worked and Radiohead delivered their best album since OK Computer.

Smart cookies indeed.

Prince sells his sign to the Daily Mail

Prince – as smart at business as he is with the guitar, shocked the industry by distributing his album ‘Planet Earth’ free with The Mail on Sunday. He was reportedly paid £500k, which is more than he stood to make from selling through the usual channels. Didn’t do his tour sales any harm either for his month long stint at the O2. My mate went and was shocked when the black symbol embossed tambourine he bought for his son set him back £70. Ironic that one of the few areas artists have control over is an extortionate percussion instrument.

Win an iTune with Coca-Cola

Choice. It’s all about choice. That’s what apple acted upon –selecting individual songs as opposed to albums and using iTunes as a legit alternative to illegal downloads. Yes, Napster were first, but apple made it easy, cool and ubiquitous.

Winning a song for the cynic is winning 79 pence, but the emotion behind what that song could make you feel like is far greater. The fact that redemption is easy, secure and cost effective to deliver makes this a Michael Winner.

Party Mix Your ‘Flux’

With Bloc Party’s release of Flux, NME cover-mounted four unique mixes of the song, along with software that enabled you to mix your own bespoke version. Co-creative and outstanding value.

Arctic Monkeys ‘still take you home’

A lot has been written about the Monkeys and in recent interviews they were keen to correct the press on the popular misconception that their success came from the myspace generation. Yes, a demo album called ‘Beneath the Boardwalk’ was available for now’t but their success came from a rigorous touring schedule and simply giving away the album free on CD’s. There’s nothing like getting something in your hands at the end of the day is there?

myspace

Apparently Lilly Allen has more friends than any other individual on myspace. A trend continued by one hit wonder Sandy Thom… and Mike Skinner before? Not sure about that one.

Anyway – for every Lilly there’s five thousand myspace bands who aren’t seen or heard.

Jamiroqia in the sky

Sony Ericsson managed to get Jay Kay out of his Ferrari and onto a Boeing 747 to perform a great gig in the sky to 200 passengers, before landing and then performing to 700 lucky punters. Proves puns work and that anything is possible.

T-Mobile street gigs

Exclusive content fused with flash mobbing = street gigs. One off gigs with the likes of the Zutons and The Magic Numbers where only T-Mobile customers knew where they were. The content was so original that is spurned a Friday night music programme sponsored by T-Mobile called ‘Transmission’.