Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Radiohead: the band who rewrote the rules

Portishead are about to release their next album, 10 years after the last one. So are Massive Attack, which will be only their fifth album in 17 years. The good ship Oasis is hoving into view: they've just completed the Los Angeles sessions on their seventh album, the follow-up to Don't Believe the Truth (2005). After some delay, the successor to Coldplay's X&Y is also looming this summer. Thom YorkeRadiohead's world tour proper kicks off in Florida early next monthRadiohead took a long time to finish and release their current album, too. Four-and-a-half years passed between the appearance of Hail to the Thief and the (initially) download-only In Rainbows last October. But, unlike their totemic peers in modern British music, only Radiohead spent a huge chunk of that time thinking. Not dithering, indulging, fretting, or spending their rock-star millions. Thinking."You wouldn't believe the amount of meetings we've been having," singer Thom Yorke notes with a dry chuckle. He looks wearied as he says it. Taking nothing for granted, reimagining how bands - especially big bands - operate. It's clearly taken its toll.But he's also buzzing with ideas and enthusiasm. Radiohead have been buoyed by the runaway success of the In Rainbows "initiative" - not only in terms of sales, but in terms of the music-industry shift engendered by their pay-what-you-think-this-is-worth moment. Not forgetting the crucial fact that Radiohead's seventh is a beautiful and stunning album.For these devil-in-the-detail artist-thinkers, the revolutionary "honesty box" idea was only the start of it. Radiohead then agonised over the bit rate (which affects the quality of the sound) at which the downloaded album should be made available.

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