Manic Street Preachers Not Sure Of Free Music

Manic Street Preachers

The Manic Street Preachers' Nicky Wire has expressed concerns about the growth of free downloads, referencing Radiohead's free download promotion.

Wire told the Daily Star: "Fair play to Radiohead for doing something different. It's certainly great for publicity but I think it kind of demeans music. Music used to be a market, now it's all gone digital. It's worrying and it seems to be the way of the world at the moment. Sales are doing well everywhere else. Cinema is doing well, video games are doing well but music isn't. The free download phenomenon is ruining the industry".

That said, the Manics may well follow Radiohead's lead in another domain - not re-signing to a major record company, and maintaining more control over their own future releases. Talking about what they may do when their current contract with SonyBMG expires, drummer Sean Moore said: "We made more money with live shows this year than in the last seven of releasing records. We have one more album with Sony, and are coming to the end of our publishing and merchandising deals. We want to do records ourselves. Labels are scared to move forward, we're not".