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Unbelievable Truth “Settle Down”
Andy Yorke (yes, his brother) has a solo record coming out in the UK this week. You can stream the album now at Last FM or you can check out this video from Unbelievable Truth — the terribly underrated band he once sang for. If you lost interest in Thom after he discovered Can and Autechre, you’re gonna want to hear this.
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The monetary value of music is shrinking. →
This interesting timeline lists some of the major events to provide a precedent for the recent devaluation of the CD and MP3 mediums — including obvious picks like Napster, the Best Buy indie-label controversy, and of course, Radiohead. But I’d argue that the most compelling factor in this unstoppable decline goes back to the introduction of the compact disc: $18 for a product that costs roughly $1.50 to manufacture? It’s as if Thom Yorke were presciently rubbing it in when he sang, “You do it to yourself and that’s what really hurts.”Video
Radiohead are still great mostly because they inspire greatness in other people.
Not even Autechre would think to use a dot matrix printer, photo scanners, and an array of hard drives to recreate “Nude.”
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According to Scott Lamb, "Listening to Radiohead in iTunes always sounds best with the equalizer set to Piano." →
I just listened to “Nude” in my standard preset, followed by a replay in the Piano setting and, well, I’ll be damned.Photo
Take that, Radiohead.
Having already made millions on his last internet download venture, Trent Reznor is offering the new and proper Nine Inch Nails album, The Slip, in higher-than-CD quality WAV format for absolutely free.
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It's time for the Time 100. →
Time’s yearly list of the 100 most influential people is out and the author assigned to praise Radiohead is an an interesting choice. Meet Edgar Bronfman Jr., CEO of Warner Music Group:
“When Radiohead announced that In Rainbows would be made available online directly to consumers at whatever price they wanted to pay, many said it signaled the end of the world’s major music labels. As the CEO of one of them, I may surprise you by saying that they were right. The traditional record-label business model — the one based on controlling access and distribution — is dead.”
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In Rainbows.
Radiohead go indie, signing licensing deals to ATO Records and XL Recordings for the U.S. and Europe, respectively, in addition to retaining the ownership of their master tapes. This only two weeks after the band net almost ten million dollars in one day of download sales. Apparently, the postman delivering that memo about the music industry sucking got lost on the way to Thom Yorke’s house. (Also: A fantastic collection of designer-generated In Rainbows cover art.)Link