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As it usually does, news of a new Radiohead album is flooding across the internet today. There are a few differences this time, though. First, the band (specifically, guitarist Jonny Greenwood) put the information out on their message board. Second, he told us that the album will be released in just 10 days. Yep, that's right. So, they're not using a record label to do this; they're just putting it out as downloads through a new website named for the new album, In Rainbows. It gets even better - they haven't set a price for the downloads. You can go to the website, choose your own price, and place your order. I've heard of other bands doing something similar, but this is certainly the first that a band of their popularity has tried this. There's no time for the album to leak, no big billboards hyping it, no pre-release reviews to tease us. Ten days and it's just going to be out there.
There is a second option to buy the album and actually get something physical from the band. For £40.00, you can buy the "Discbox," which gets you the album plus a bonus disc (just call it a double album) on both CD and 10" vinyl, artwork, and extra digital media. This won't ship until early December, but you still can get the digital download with everyone else on October 10th. Of course, this is what I went for.
I've been hoping that they would do something without a label for this album, but I don't think I ever really believed that it would happen. This is going to be a very interesting experiment that hopefully will show the record labels what could be possible with new ways of music sales and distribution. How worried will the labels be if this album is very successful and other bands who are not under a contract realize that they might be able to do this? Radiohead certainly has a rabid internet following, so they are probably in a better position than most, but I can't help but hope that they're doing something really groundbreaking here.
Jerad posted this in Albums | Comments (0)
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