Radiohead: In Rainbows

Radiohead is releasing their new album, In Rainbows today(Oct. 10th). This is their first studio album in 4 years, since Hail to the Thief. You might be saying big deal so Radiohead has released a new album. Well you see the big deal is that Radiohead no longer has a record contract with EMI, that ended with Hail to the Thief, fulfilling their contractual obligation of 6 albums. So with no record deal they decided to offer their newest album straight to their fans with out having to deal with a middle man(i.e record stores) as a digital download.

Ok, Ok you may still be saying big f'ing deal, well Radiohead is allowing you the fan to determine how much you want to pay for the new album yourself. Yeah you read that right, YOU set the price! So if you want to pay a penny for it you can! Although you'd be a bit of a cheapskate if you did that. You could also conceivably not pay anything for it and set your price as nothing and I'm sure alot of people will be doing that, hell it even crossed my mind. Yet I determined that Radiohead is a good enough band(understatement of the year) for me to shell out some of my hard earned cash. So I went to their site typed in a price I deemed appropriate, payed it and 3 minutes after downloading the DRM free album, I'm listening to it. It couldn't of been any easier.

Could this be the way of the future for bands to sell their music, just totally bypassing record companies all together? Or is this really something thats only feasibly for more established bands who already have a built in fan base? I guess only time will tell.

Official Radiohead site: Dead AIr space
If you haven't already clicked the In Rainbows link above than click here to purchase it.
For more Radiohead goodness check out this blog

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