Our Bad: Adventures in Fact-Checking or What Happens When You Write Things At Your Day Job

Last week was all about this big Radiohead excitement and we, yes we, broke a story to you about how much Radiohead possibly cleared in the process. We cited a number of 1.2 million albums (which we still stand behind) and quoted a London Times poll that put the average price-paid at eight dollars (which we still stand behind). We also quoted a figure of 9.6 million dollars - the natural extension of multiplying the previous two numbers (college proves worth the price). We also stand behind this figure until new information is revealed or until our sources tell us otherwise. This was a breaking story and for the most part, we (and by "we," I mean, "I") absolutely nailed it. And before anyone else.

Now, to paraphrase an early Daily Show promo - when news breaks, sometimes things get broken. For the sake of comparison, I used Kanye West's huge selling record, Graduation for a bellwether. Just how important is Radiohead for selling 1.2 million albums? Well, I quoted Kanye's sales figures at just shy of 900,000. That was correct ... but only for US domestic sales. I did not factor in that Radiohead 1.2m sold to a world-wide audience and that Kanye's figures world-wide were most likely larger. I said that Radiohead had managed to trump the largest selling record this year by a factor of 300,000. Well, that just wasn't true. World-wide, Kanye sold more records in his opening week. Those are the facts and I got them wrong.

The point I was trying to make was that, despite minor overhead and no infrastructure, Radiohead sold an absolute landslide of albums and would clear more cash as a result. I should have kept my argument to money and not absolute album sales. Even if Kanye sold 4 million albums, Radiohead still stood to make off with more revenue - a result of no record label, no physical production of a CD, and almost no marketing or promotional costs. The post was about cash - not sales. For my digression, lack of focus, and shotgun fact-checking I apologize.

People at Atlantic Records, good eyes and thanks for reading. Island/Def Jam, we still love your shit. Hold me down or hold me up. Peas.