We have http://www.redose.com for free mp3s and http://www.rednetic.com for CDs, maybe thats called hedging our bets. We will just have to wait and see how it all settles down, if it every does.

Regarding the topic of how music is consumed, as I seem to understand that it is what you are refering to when saying “not about contributing to any ‘debate’ on the subject - I just don’t consider this debate - it’s fait accompli”, and since it is very much the angle I wanted David to adopt for his review: you may not consider there is any debate happening about how music is consumed, but there is. Big time. CD sales are slumping, but we’re not here seeing such an increase in legal music download that it is as black and white as when CD sales overtook vinyl sales. And the way music is being consumed, primarily as a good and not as an artform, may not be entirely new, but it is much more pronounced now. That IS a massive change in itself. We (a general we) want music on the go anytime, we want our ringtones to be the latest hits, or our favourite tunes, we will soon be able to buy music we hear in Starbucks (that is if you even bother with Starbucks, but that’s a different topic of conversation altogether), etc… When I was growing, all these years ago (LPs were STILL the norm, would you believe), music was something you cherished, something you longued for, simply because you couldn’t really access it all the time. Of course, there were walkmans (I am not that old after all), so you could take music with you, but unless you wanted to carry hundreds of tapes with you, your choice while on the move was quite limited.

Somehow I still see music as much more than just a recorded set of notes, with someone singing over the top if necessary, so I like to have at least a CD in my hands that I can check out, appreciate the artwork, find out more about a track if I want to, and if the info is available on the cover. I feel a bit short-changed when I buy a piece of music and get an electronic file. That’s not however how ‘younger people’ see music overall. They can download as much as they want, get music for free on peer-to-peer networks, so why should they pay for it. But, what if they were given the choice to pay or not to pay. What if they were put in a position to judge whether they want to contribute or just get it for free? Because, in my opinion, that’s all Radiohead are offering here, but for a band of their stature to say to people who are keen to hear their music for any reason: ‘go on, help youselves, take the music and pay us if you feel like it’ is in no way arrogant, or a stunt. They are free to do what they want with their music. And how does that represent two fingers up at independent artist? David mentioned in his review that it has been done before, by what I understand is an independent band (I think). And it could well work again for more minor artists than Radiohead. I could work for Aphex. It could work for Coldplay. It could work for Philip Glass…

Where the step taken by Radiohead contributes to the debate is just that: it may make other artists consider this as an option, labels perhaps, even majors. There are loads of initiatives to make music available for free, even from majors (wasn’t it Universal who was recently announcing they would make part of their catalogue available for free?), so what Radiohead are doing is no different. They are a band who are keen to put their work out, and this is a way to do it. They can, at least, support it as they most probably don’t ‘need’ the money. Selling records and playing gigs is still however, what they do to earn a living.

I am not dying to hear the album but that’s a personal thing. Still, I thing they are participating in the debate, and a debate there well and trully is, and I respect them for that.

They clearly can afford to do that because:

a) they have a strong fan base which will undoubtedly support them on this and pay a decent price to download the album, and buy the CD version.

b) they are lauded, so they are only taking a limited risk with this I suppose.

I think these two points are very important, and because of these, Radiohead are, I think, contributing to the debate about how music is consumed, and how it will consumed in the future, and that’s more than most artists do, whether they can afford it or not.

As for the music itself (and I haven’t heard the new album, so this is based to my generic knowledge of Radiohead), for all the calls of ‘Radiohead take really edgy stuff to the mainstream’ that I’ve heard for years, I still don’t think it’s educated much of that mainstream. I doubt many people have had the curiosity to look behind the music, but I suppose it is not specific to them. It is just amplified because of the popularity of the band.

As for your claim on burning earnings, deleting back catalogue or other performance art manifestations, Radiohead aren’t artists in the same sense as Bill Drummond and James Cauty are, so making an analogy is in my opinion rather pointless. What Cauty and Drummond have done over the years goes well beyond anything seen in popular arts. Does it make Radiohead more or less relevant? To me, it just doesn’t relate.