Radiohead Releases New Album - Music Industry Vomits in its Mouth

Only Radiohead could have done this. The Oxford quintet had fans “WTF?!"ing across the planet when they announced today that their seventh LP, In Rainbows, would be available for download in ten short days. An album folks barely knew existed can be on their iPods in less than two weeks. You can pre-order the fool thing today and pay whatever amount you can afford! Fans can also pre-order something called a “discbox”(available to ship on or after December 3rd) that contains the full album plus a bunch of extra tracks on LP, a code allowing purchasers to download the album digitally, and Radiohead’s infamously cryptic album art. With the discbox running upwards of £40 ($81), it might make more sense to hold out for the basic CD which should be available early next year.

This is truly unprecedented behavior – particularly for one of the most commercially and critically successful rock acts in the Western world. Suddenly Britain’s consummate musical innovators are now certified marketing innovators. Radiohead’s provocative sales plan has everything to do with the fact that the boys have managed to extricate themselves form the major label grind. Their contract with EMI/Capitol ended after the release of 2003’s Hail to the Thief. Throughout the recording of In Rainbows, bets were laid on the band’s next move. Would they go major, indie, or go it alone? Thom and co. refused much comment (though the release of Thom’s solo effort, The Eraser, on indie stalwarts XL, at least suggested their minds were open to change.)

Now we know. Radiohead are the taking the piss out of the music industry and releasing one of the most anticipated records in years on their own. The details of their marketing plan – what amounts to an officially-sanctioned leak of the album combined with a premium/super-deluxe/balls-out LP, before the release of the regular CD – points to deep fissures developing in the music industry. The split here is between content (the actual music) and packaging (the value-adds, the artwork, the stuff you can hold in your hands). Content is ubiquitous. Everyone, including Radiohead, assumes access to the music. If the band didn’t “leak” the album themselves, someone else would. But people will still pay for packaging – particularly rabid Radiohead fans hungry for Stanley Donwood’s album art. Hence the $81 double LP – an LP that crucially doesn’t prohibit access to mp3s and the convenience of iPod portability.

Finally, it’s no coincidence that the CD is hitting shelves last and that it isn’t even available for pre-order. If you can download the album digitally for nearly nothing or pay a few bucks and get the album on digital and analog formats along with your weight in add-ons, why pay $18 for a piece of plastic?