Radiohead - In Rainbows

Yesterday Radiohead came out with a new album called In Rainbows. You might not have seen it in record stores yet. That's because it's not in the usual record stores.

As Radiohead's contract with Parlophone expired after Hail To The Thief, they decided not to sign to a record label and instead distribute their music themselves via the internet. Nothing unusual here so far. The unusual thing is that Radiohead did not price their new album, but they left the price up to the buyers. It says "It's up to you" when you want to pay. It is really up to you.

I paid GBP 5. The rationale being that there are 10 songs on it and on iTunes I normally pay $0.99 per song. So for 10 songs $10 sounds about right. Of course when I pay on iTunes the artist will only get about 20% of the $0.99 whereas Radiohead gets the full $1.00 I'm paying per song but I couldn't be bothered with the whole calculation etc. I'm a big fan of Radiohead and I'm willing to spend that much money on their new album.

Yesterday morning I received an email with the download link. I downloaded it and put it straight on my iTunes and listened to it. Fans of Pablo Honey and The Bends should not be bothered, but I do sense a shift from the electronic stuff they did in Kid A and Amnesiac back towards more instruments.

I won't give the album 5 stars yet, but the way they put the album out is definitely worth 5 stars. It can either be a one-off experiment or it can be the start of a revolution. Hopefully it falls in the latter.

Go ahead, purchase In Rainbows now.