In rainbows

alright, this is going to be overtly stanny and excitable, but let me just get this out.

Radiohead announced, about 3 hours ago over their website, that they are releasing their new album "In Rainbows." Aside from the fact that it's radiohead and they're fucking great, here are several reasons why this album is revolutionary, without even hearing it.

a.) the record is entirely self-distributed. You go to radiohead.com to get the album. No major label is responsible, no one made any demands of radiohead, no corporate branding anywhere. It's, from the ground up, a self-propelled release by a band that can do it. This is, in essence, the music industy's Lexington. It's the shot heard round the world. because:

b.) the download comes from radiohead.com, nowhere else. It's DRM free, it's high quality MP3's, and if you want a hard copy, you order it from them (and get vinyl, cd's, artbooks, and a whole other album's worth of material, essentially making it a double vinyl album (because the other songs aren't b-sides by any stretch of the imagination)). Here's the best part: you decide how much you're going to pay for the digital album. Seriously. If you want to buy the album for 1 cent, it's yours. so:

c.) why bootleg it? it (most likely) won't leak because the hard copy isn't available until december 3rd. And the digital album will be out October 10th (yes, releasing an album 10 days after the announcement... bad-ass). And you can literally download it for free, as long as you tell radiohead.com that you want it for free. If you choose to support radiohead and give them money, great. If not, great. The download is through radiohead.com. And who knows what will be included in the download package as of now?

d.) since they can establish their own design in their own matter of choosing, it looks like the "discbox" is going to be an art student's wet dream. AND YOU GET THE VINYL NO MATTER WHAT! so maybe some music fans will be motivated to go out and buy record players and see how great music sounds when it's physically reproduced. Man. This is literally a home run of a record.

I can't begin to tell you how excited I am. even if the album sucks, this may end up being one of those moments where we all get the treat of seeing an entire industry and economy slightly shift one way or the other. if the album moves a million units (easy for radiohead) in the US, then we'll see Billboard charts have to completely readjust their sales standards (because if it's the most popular record in the country then it's the most popular, regardless of whether they sold it to you for free), we'll start to see "indies" actually become indie, we'll see artist driven labels (like, for real), we'll see tour sales go through the roof (hey! that band that gave me their album for $5 is touring! why not!), and we'll see a paper culture industry actually catch up to the times. I know this is one album, but it's a huge album, from the biggest free-agents in the music world. U2 and REM and the Stones have more money than God but they can't directly sell their album to their fans? yeah. Good job radiohead.

And for luddites like me, I can get the album on vinyl, CD, and my computer without having to buy the same thing 2-3 times. And I can get a massive art book by one of my favorite artists. We all win.

i'm gonna get back to not sleeping until next wednesday