Radiohead will let fans decide how much to pay for new studio album

Originally posted: October 1, 2007

Radiohead will let fans decide how much to pay for new studio album

Radiohead has announced that it will release its seventh studio album, “In Rainbows,” on Oct. 10 as a digital download. What’s more, the band will let its fans decide how much, if anything, to pay for it.
“It’s up to you,” the checkout screen says on the U.K. band’s Web site, radiohead.com, for pre-ordering the 10-song disc.
An expanded, physical version of the album also will be released, but not until Dec. 3. It will include an18-track double-album packaged in both CD and vinyl versions, with lyrics, artwork and photographs in a hardback book and slipcase It will be sold for 40 pounds, the equivalent of about $80.
The band’s Jonny Greenwood made the announcement Sunday on radiohead.com: “Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days. We've called it ‘In Rainbows.’ ”
That sort of terse public-relations release wouldn’t fly at a major label, but the internationally acclaimed U.K. band has completed its obligation to Capitol/EMI and is a free agent. Though the major record labels have blamed free file-sharing for cutting into album sales, Radiohead’s career has painted a different reality.
In recent years, unauthorized digital copies of Radiohead’s albums have been widely downloaded and shared by fans months before their official release dates; yet CDs such as “Kid A,” “Amnesiac” and “Hail to the Thief” have consistently debuted in the top 5 of the U.S. and U.K. charts.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2007/10/radiohead-says-.html

greg@gregkot.com