What Did you Expect? Radiohead Have Always Sung To Their Own tune

This morning I woke up in a state of panicked anticipation. In the summer of 2006 I was lucky enough to see Radiohead headline The Rock en Seine Festival in Paris. What I witnessed on that warm August night somewhere in the banlieu of Paris only confirmed what was already firmly believed. That Thom Yorke and his friends have developed into the foremost Rock band of this era − they have taken modern music to a new artistic level. Criticised for being arty, pretentious and dirge like, I challenge any critic who has witnessed them live to still persist with this argument.

It is now 10th of October 2007, and eleven days earlier Radiohead announced that they were releasing their long anticipated seventh studio album. I had been waiting for this day a lot longer than I though I would have to! Live version of some of the tracks already written had long since been leaked onto Youtube, the then unnamed Videotape was one such track that had left a haunting impression on me that night in Paris. I began to harbour a feint hope, that this album could be a corker though the feeling was coupled familiar anxiety. Like many, I have had to learn the hard way that high expectations often result in bitter disappoint, and this doesn’t just apply to music!

I allowed my daring hope to prevail however. The sound of these new songs did seem very original, yet understated and dare it be said, more accessible than Hail To The Thief, but without returning to the more traditional rock of The Bends. What kept my faith was that if Radiohead were going to “sell out”, then they would have done it long ago. Every musical direction since The Bends has been a demonstration that this band represented the very polar opposite of this.

And then the bombshell... While everyone else is standing around with their fingers in their bums, Radiohead’s website announce that the band have finished their album and that it will be available for download in ten days time. Cheeky rascals.

Now If you have read some of the many other articles on this subject then you may or may not agree. None realise one point about this much talked about new release technique.

“So he likes Radiohead then…”

“Yea he does… he does but only up until The Bends,”

“Oh, right… he’s one of them. Ah well, he might have good taste in films, lets give the guy a chance”.

This is a familiar conversation for many, one very similar to this has taken place many times amongst my peers − You see, for some, compassion for Radiohead ended the moment that “Ok Computer” was released and for them, the band disappeared far up their own rectums.

It’s a familiar story − honest young friends with relative talent and who seriously dig music write a few songs and happen to hit upon a sound and sentiment not heard before. Honest young friends secure major record deal, become relatively famous, receive unwarranted female attention and become conniving little bastards who are all secretly jealous of the synth player. They know secretly that he is the only one with any real talent. Conniving little wankers are told to record a second album by the record company and after realising that they have spent to much time getting drunk and stoned, and not using this altered state of mind to write anything original, decide to record ten identical songs to their last album. But the record company don’t mind, they know that they can eek at least two more albums from these suckers before consigning them to the dustbin of “in ten years, no one will even remember you, let alone give a shit club.” These are the musicians who only like The Bends.

Radiohead’s contract with EMI/Capitol expired after its last record, Hail to the Thief, was released in 2003; shortly before the band started writing new songs. Thom Yorke told TIME, “I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘Fuck you’ to this decaying business model.” Radiohead have always been an independent band at heart. A major was the right business model for them because only a major could provide the finances needed to fund a band with such a wide fanbase. Their ability to sell millions of records was based on pure excellence, not because they subscribed to a particular scene, or sound deemed fashionable at that time (though many very talented bands, it should be pointed out, have been initiators of such scenes). Radiohead have long been a superstar band who don’t play by the rule book, challenging their audience by changing their sound. They have lost a few fans along the way yes, but have gained many in return. In doing so, they have escaped becoming one of those great bands who peter out after ten years, sick and unable to reinvent themselves.

After only growing in stature since "The Bends", the band would have slowly realised that the record company was becoming less and less important for them. I expect that they would have seen independence as a opportunity that their natural sense of intuitivism, originality and intelligence would aspire to. And the outcome of their decision was sensational, an extremely well executed act. Before you start calling them entrepenurial geniuses as well as musical maestros however, don’t forget that they had four years to think about it all! I have to give it to them though; those boys know how to keep a bloody secret!

I’m going to draw a hilariously crude comparison now − Katie Melua must be suffering with a similar discontent. Recently the singer songwriter announced in an interview with The Telegraph that she has decided to make no more albums with her co-writer and mentor Mike Batt. “I wouldn't say I was getting restless but three was enough. I am becoming my own person and there isn't space any more for two creative people to go on an album.” Every fledging becomes an adult and feels the need to leave their comfortable nest, and spread their wings.

And audaciously spread their considerable wing span, Radiohead have done. This download idea is, may I point out probably less original than any of their music don’t you know.What did Arctic Monkeys do a few years ago if it wasn’t offering fans downloads of their songs? JJ72 has done it, so have Nine Inch Nails, and your Dad might listen to Marillion. He might have even been one of the few thousand faithful fans of the long time prog rockers to prepay for an album that wasn’t even recorded at the time.

Now look, no cynic here is going to tell me that this stunt was simply a clever marketing ploy which has gained greater long term credibility for the band, though both of these statements are true. It was an audacious statement by a band who were in the position to make that statement. The more superstitious amongst us might call it fate − the invention of the internet was a large part of this fate. In years to come, will we look at the 10th November to be the turning point in the major record label industry’s dwindling personal fate? Perhaps, and if we do, I’m thinking that Thom and Johnny, Ed, Phil and Colin and wanted to be responsible for that. They have been in the business long enough to prove that their art is what comes first. They have prove to be the nemesis of Metallica, who sued Napster, a popular downloading software in 2000. It distanced them from fans and resulted in a major PR disaster.

Bob Lefsetz, an American music industry critic and consultant to major record labels gives his opinion. “It’s not like Radiohead’s living in a different world. But they’re playing by a different rule book. One that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right. This is big news. This says the major labels are fucked. Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. Radiohead doesn’t seem to care if the music is free. Not that they believe it will be. Because believers will give you ALL THEIR MONEY! This is the industry’s worst nightmare. Superstar band, THE superstar band, forging ahead by its own wits. Proving that others can too. And they will.”
Radiohead are proof. You can challenge your fans by changing your sound. As an artist you have the license to push those artistic boundaries, and your fans are the one’s who have helped to put you in that privileged position, they’ve had faith in you. What you can’t do is demonstrate that you’re a money grabbing philistine like Alan Sugar is. Even if you are one of these artist and you market your music to fifteen year olds, its about presenting an image of yourself as “down with the hood” or sufficiently rock and roll. If the legacy of Jack Keroac had truly lived on, then it would be about which “new wave (or should that be rave) jazz artist is most “beat”. And what can be more beat than effectively leaking your own album? The physical CD album In Rainbows will be probably released in January 2008.
So what now? For Radiohead, the future is surely bright. They might have quite happily carried on the same way, they probably would have made the same excellent record (I think that it is already safe to say that it is at least excellent). Instead, they have created a tidal wave that they may well ride for a good few years to come. Now a completely independent “superstar” band, the first of their kind, and with much more creativity in the locker room I am certain.
For the majors it looks grim and you know what, I’m not sad at all. Labels like EMI have been responsible for introducing some very bad values into the music industry, of placing marketability over the quality of the artist. I sincerely hope that all this could mean a better future for the independents − Hooray! Perhaps smaller but ambitious artists, who previously might have dismissed the independents, will now consider them. After all, not everyone can be like Radiohead and be a brand in themselves. The advantage of the major label over the independent seems to be diminishing though, which can only be a good thing for the honesty of modern music.