Ok, Now What, Mr. Computer?

Experimentation breeds new ground and paradigm shifts. Experimenting with my chemistry set as a child also led to me burning a hole through the carpet on my basement stairs. Radiohead has always been a band who has been very upfront to defying expectations. Fresh off their supernatural masterpiece OK Computer, they released the harder-to-digest Kid A and Amnesiac, electronically-heavy and studio-magicked. They once even recorded vocal tracks through cardboard egg cartons! And now, they’re releasing their album 10 days after it was finished….and it’s free. Or it might as well be. But for the more ardent of fans, the price will be quite steep. Explantion ensuing:

Starting October 10, you can download the entire album online, via their website www.radiohead.com, and you can pay WHATEVER YOU WANT. Want to pay $6.59, the entire length of the closing and hidden track of Kid A? Fine. Want to pay the minimum, 2 cents? Thom Yorke wants your pennies. The download will be DRM-free. Take that, record industry! A discbox can also be ordered, which consists of an honest-to-goodness CD, 2 vinyl records, a 2nd CD, enhanced with additional songs, digital photography and artwork, and a lyric book, all encased in a hardback book with slip case. This discbox doesn’t ship until December 3 however and, more importantly, costs 40 pounds including shipping. That’s $81.

Wasn’t this the band who penned a landmark album of the 90s, warning of the increasing control and ensuing paranoia of technology’s growing sphere of influence in the China of our collective mind? I appreciate the vinyl offering. I’m a sucker for the extended art bands use to represent their music. But $81 for a double album is steep. Could I simply download the album for pennies, burn it to my own CD, and live my life happily? Surely. I might as well pirate the music while I’m at it. So how does that make life different for recording artists than it currently is? I’m hoping this is a joke album by Radiohead to determine some sort of market price for future online ventures, and the real one will drop on December 10, when the discboxes are shipped. That’s how progress will be made. Experimentation is used to offer insights into dynamics and processes, and that is what Mr. Yorke and Co. are doing. I hope they’re not trying to offer solutions.