Always Breaking The Rules

I know that I am way behind the curve. But I just found out about Radiohead's 7th album being sold for download for whatever you want to pay. I'm sure everyone has already discussed and digested this but it's news to me since I haven't had Internet access in a long time.

This band has constantly challenged itself, it's fans and the music industry to new heights. I remember the first time I heard "The Bends" and I thought it was so different and weird but so brilliant. I remember sharing it with my friends and telling them that this was a weird band but they were good and they should give them a chance. By comparison when you look at Kid A or some of their other more recent stuff, The Bends seems so mainstream now.

Now they are taking on not only the music industry, but the very idea of paying for music. The best band in the world says you can pay them whatever you think is fair for their new album. While so many artist continue to sit around pouting about the reality of the digital download, Radiohead embraces it and changes the music industry.

This is not only a GENIUS publicity stunt, but a revolution of some sort as well. How many people will check out the band now because they want to hear what all the fuss is about? And also, how can people go on with the same mindset about art and music as commerce?

This move is the dawn of a new music era. Because of the low cost of studio gear ($50,000 will get you the equipment you need to record million dollar sounding albums) and the power of the Internet, the era of music coming directly from the artist to the listener has begun. How this will all pan out in the long run I don't know. But the idea of not having music and art filtered through what some business man in a suit thinks is very exciting to me.