emi posts video of radioheads greatest major label hits

Radiohead starts own social network

As their former label readies a greatest hits compilation to showcase their past, Radiohead continue to forge an innovative path into the future. The band has unveiled a social network where fans can post videos, remixes, blog posts, photos and up to 100 music files each.

The site runs on the Ning platform and features subnetworks dedicated to individual tour dates so that fans can hook up before the shows and chat about them afterwards. Everybody gets their own blog, playlist, photo gallery, video section, profile page and an email address for posting photos and videos from cellphones.

Just when you think Radiohead can’t possibly think of another great way to use technology to reach their fans, they go and pull something like this. Unbelievable.

radiohead rise to the top

Radiohead are that rare thing: a band that has maintained is artistic freedom over the years, despite being signed to a major label – and a band that has constantly developed. This week’s article looks at the story of how Radiohead got to where they are today, and hopefully you can take a few tips so that you can make it the Radiohead way.The band formed back in 1986, when they were at school. Originally called “On a Friday”, they played their first gig in 1986, at the famous Jericho’s Tavern in Oxford. However, when the members left for university, “On a Friday” was put to one side, and it wasn’t until 1991 that they reformed, and started playing again in Oxford.

At the time, Oxford was becoming a haven for independent musicians. Ride were gaining a national reputation, and by 1992 were playing all the major venues across the country, and Supergrass had just formed, playing the local venues, on their way to international stardom. Radiohead benefited from being part of the local scene, and the early 90s were ideal for indie bands.

It was then that they became Radiohead, and they started releasing demos, including the magnificently-titled “Magic Hedgehog Demo”. These self-funded demos were sent out to local venues, industry figures, record companies, etc., and started the band’s road to success. Gradually, through hard work and persistence, they became very well known on the local scene – appearing on the front cover of a local indie music magazine, and playing regularly around Oxford.

Record companies began to take interest as the buzz grew around Radiohead, and it was EMI who were first to pounce, taking the band on their Parlophone subsidiary. In 1992, they released their first single, “Creep”, which barely registered on the British charts, but gained them significant interest with the music press. The indie music magazine NME, for example, made it their single of the week, and with the backing of the independent music press, the band had momentum.

They released their first album, “Pablo Honey”, in the middle of a period that saw British indie music enter a darker phase. The album was given a lukewarm reception by the music press, who had so appreciated Creep. However, the public took to the album very quickly, and its success meant that the band soon went to tour the States. The pressure on the band meant that they almost split up, and as the album became more and more successful, the band felt that they needed more artistic freedom.

And this is where “The Bends” comes into it. Generally recognised by music critics around the world as one of, if not the best album of the 1990s, “The Bends” was the product of a band’s desire to go it alone and to produce something extraordinary. Hiring a new producer who allowed them to do what they wanted, they released an EP (My Iron Lung) before the release of their second album, and went on to provide more musical depth than in their previous album.

Riding on the success that was Britpop, “The Bends” was a huge commercial success, far more edgy than the pop-rock of “Pablo Honey”. Lead singer Thom Yorke had become an idol for many indie music fans across the world, and Jonny Greenwood’s unique guitar style had already become iconic. From their origins as a young unsigned band in Oxford, they had gone international, gaining success in the States, which not many British bands manage.

Although Britpop inevitably helped the band succeed, it also cut short the longevity of other bands. Those that managed to change and adapt when Britpop became passé remained successful, but there were plenty of bands who couldn’t change, and soon fell by the wayside.

Radiohead’s attitude after “The Bends” was to explore new avenues, and the release of “OK Computer” saw the band in a more sombre mood. Many saw it as a natural progression, and saw it as a much better album than “The Bends”, while others felt alienated by the band’s progression from the pop-rock of their first album.

The band’s recording techniques also changed. They decided to keep away from traditional recording studios, after several bad experiences, and actually recorded most of the songs for “OK Computer” at Jane Seymour’s 15th century mansion near Bath! By moulding their settings to fit the characteristics of the band, they immediately improved their recording experience. Blending rock sounds with more ambient, technical sounds, the album shot to number one across the world.

With Britpop dead, it was a few years before Radiohead surfaced again. Having detached themselves from the scene, they now became a “word of mouth” band with an enormous fanbase across the world. Music events were organised through the internet, with very little advertising required, and tickets were near impossible to come by. The band seemed reclusive, and were close to splitting up, with Thom York on the verge of depression.

The release of “Kid A” in 2000 shocked both fans and industry alike. Stripping down the guitars, the album was at first difficult listening – electronic, cryptic, synthesised, and with no stand-out tracks at all. It almost seemed as if the band were sticking two fingers up at the world, but it just went to show how brave Radiohead were in their musical direction. After several listens, Radiohead fans grew to love the album, and equally so with the quick follow-up “Amnesiac”. The albums blended electronica with jazz and ambient music, but maintained Radiohead’s lyrical hooks and character.

Again, the albums were given very little advance warning, and very little advertising. It was another case of the word-of-mouth buzz that Radiohead had been building up over the years, and with such a loyal fanbase, Radiohead are the perfect example of a band that has done all the hard work, sent off the demos, and gone from the top of the local scene to the top of the international scene.

After the release of “Hail to the Thief”, which was hailed as a return to the guitar-based indie of “OK Computer”, the band is today recording again, and Thom Yorke is about to release his own solo album, and live performances of new Radiohead songs show them back in “The Bends” territory.

So, did Radiohead “make it” differently from any other band? Well, probably not, if you look at it – they started off by gigging locally, making their reputation in their hometown of Oxford – and you could say that they were helped by two factors – the rise of Oxford bands in the early 90s, and the rise of Britpop bands in the mid 90s. After gaining their reputation, they kept up the hard work, and the most important thing is that they never stood still: no Radiohead album is like the previous one, making them one of the most innovative and interesting bands around. The internet fanbase is another interesting factor, as Radiohead were probably the first band to really use the internet for their promotion, as opposed to traditional channels.

If you want to make it the Radiohead way, then, get yourself known locally, and most important: never stand still.

Radiohead, NIN to Top Lollapalooza 2008 Bill

Lollapalooza 2008 hits Chicago’s Grant Park August 1-3, and it’s looking like this year’s fest has gone to the gloomy and the angry. A report on Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot’s blog Turn It Up indicates that frequently unnerved Radiohead and perennially angsty Nine Inch Nails will be the guests of honor at Perry Farrell’s next party.According to Kot, “industry sources have confirmed that Radiohead has been booked as the centerpiece of the festival,” not terribly surprising given all of Thom Yorke and company’s other planned festival activity. Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails will occupy two of the fest’s three nightly headlining spots, and it’s doubtful anyone will bat an eyelash if Jack Johnson winds up with the third one.

Representatives for Radiohead and Lollapalooza have not yet responded to requests for confirmation.

Coldplay reveals album title and release date

Coldplay’s fourth album, “Viva la Vida,” will arrive June 17 in North America and a day earlier internationally, according to the band’s spokespersonThe Capitol release is the follow-up to 2005’s “X&Y,” which topped the Billboard 200.

So far, Coldplay’s lone confirmed live dates are at the first Pemberton Festival in British Columbia on July 27 and Japan’s Summer Sonic Festival on August 9-10.

radiohead musics true trailblazers

With the British art-rock band Radiohead releasing their new album entitled “In Rainbows” as a digital download and sold it for whatever their fans volunteered to pay, is this going to become a new trend in the methods that bands supply their music to the public?With CD shipments to retailers down 13% from last year, this innovative way to eliminate the middle man, the record label, has proved exactly where the music industry is headed. But there is a catch, the release is only available via the web site (InRainbows.com) and cannot be purchased in retail stores. The band will also offer fans a deluxe-edition box set that includes vinyl and CD copies of the release, plus a CD of bonus tracks and a lyric book on December 3.

Will this technique catch on? One can only guess, but given the restraints that some record companies have on their artists, early reports suggest that most consumers are actually paying for the release. This release may have made the band more money than previous releases by eliminating the “manufacturing” costs of a CD, including promotion, marketing, distribution and the record label’s cut.

An interesting element to this is that the release is getting more “word of mouth” promotion and publicity than most albums. People are intrigued and are talking about it and large web sites (mostly corporate) are not discussing it mainly because the record company (or lack thereof) is not asking them that they do so.

Now is this a one-time phenomenon or is Radiohead blazing a new musical distribution trail? It could be a bit of both, really. This release is a record label’s nightmare, a band can actually release it’s own material without jumping through the proverbial “corporate” hoops and record label red tape, and actually make money in the process. It also shows an impending trend, where music can be released without the aid of the “hard media” like CDs or vinyl records. There are predictions that in the coming years a lot of bands and artists will follow this lead and may offer album downloads as a market tool to promote their tours as well as sell other merchandise.

In fact, Trent Reznor, of the hard-rock band Nine Inch Nails has stated that they do not have a recording contract with their record label and may follow a similar path of not having a record label to support their next release. Other artists such as Madonna have already followed suit.

So this may be the direction music is heading. Bands have also taken note of the “singles” market, where a consumer can pay for just one or two downloads, and the artist will not necessarily have to have an album release to support the singles. Yes, the digital download is here to stay, much to the chagrin of the record labels as well as vinyl enthusiasts. There is a whole new digital world out there for musicians and one they are running to grab by the horns.

Elliott Spitzer

Just like in radioheads hauntingly beautiful videotape. I wonder if Elliott spitzer is scared does he have a conscience, a soul, does he see the disgust and hurt on his wife’s face as shes stands behind him, does he care or does power truly corrupt. Or maybe hes just a man flawed like the rest of us swimming in the dark going no where quickly??? just a thought.

Radiohead the best band in the world

Radiohead is by far the best band in the world. All the way from Pablo honey and humble startings. Creep surely launched them into the sky with fans ever since then through the bends ok computer all the way up to in rainbows they have emerged as one of the all time best bands. From there hard rock on the bends to there haunting melodies of nude and all I need on the new album I will forever cherish the memories that thom york and crew have given me sharing my experiences in life with there music. Radiohead rules

Radiohead radiohead

With the release of OK Computer, critics were quick to canonize Radiohead as the great post-Nirvana rock band, an honorific that, a decade on, feels more apt than ever, even as the group has continued to evolve in wholly unexpected ways. The band’s songs, soaring and atmospheric, are spacious enough to fill stadiums, and Radiohead have become one of the best live bands of their generation. At the same time, the more experimental direction the music has taken — the false starts and buried melodies, the messy electronica and avant-garde dissonance — not only complements the overweening sense of dread suffusing Yorke’s lyrics but actually feels complementary to our entire damaged era, sounding like a future soundtrack to a documentary about early-twenty-first-century malaise.

After the Hail to the Thief tour ended in 2004, the band members took a year off to spend time with their families. Yorke, who has been with his partner, Rachel Owen, a fine-art printmaker, since they were students at Exeter University, will say very little about his family life. When asked if his children have managed to discover any music that annoys him, he thinks for a moment, then says, “I mean, I like the Chili Peppers. But I hear a lot of it in my house. They haven’t really heard our new record yet.”

Intentionally?

Just because . . . I think my missus isn’t ready to hear it yet. Having seen me go through the mills making it.

She hasn’t listened to it at all?

Not yet. She will. But it’s a difficult thing for her to watch me go through the whole process. She doesn’t like it. So she’s not exactly ready to listen to the music.

Would she rather you’d not make music and just be a happier person?

Yeah, probably.

So working on a record makes you a difficult person?

To live with? That’s about a hundred percent true. Yes. She does it, though.

She’s an artist, as well. Do you ever ask for feedback on what you’re working on?

It’s — yeah. Anyway. Next question.

All five members of Radiohead are married or have longtime partners, and each couple has at least two children. “I think we’ve always been a band in their thirties,” says Jonny Greenwood. “We’re like the Pixies in that way. Maybe that’s why we like them so much. When they had their reunion, in my head it just made sense — because they were always like that, really. They were never teenagers. And it’s the same with us.”

Greenwood, 36, is the youngest member of the band, shy and gangly, with an understated sense of humor and an eccentric taste in music even by Radiohead standards. (He spent six months in 2005 listening to nothing but dub reggae.) Over lunch one afternoon, when his salmon sandwich arrives with a side salad but no silverware, he simply begins to eat the lettuce with his fingers. His personality in no way jibes with his first appearance in the public eye, in the 1994 “Creep” video, where he’s strumming his guitar with such angular violence he could be a cop holding down a protester with one hand and swinging a truncheon with the other. Jonny’s brother, bassist Colin Greenwood, is thirty-eight, and with his mod haircut and black leather jacket, he’s the only member of Radiohead who looks like he could be a member of Oasis. In conversation, he’s given to pausing midsentence and staring off into space, eventually saying, “Yeahhhh,” in a way that never makes it clear if he’s bored or spacey or trying to think of the exact right word or enhancing his spaciness for dry comic effect. His wife is a novelist, and Colin, a literature major at Cambridge, is quite well-read, making reference to everything from Richard Ellman’s biography of Oscar Wilde to Bill Buford’s cooking memoir, Heat.

the future part 3

The download plan was hatched by Radiohead’s managers Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge (“when they were a bit stoned,” notes guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood) during the long gap between Hail to the Thief, which marked the end of the band’s major-label recording contract, and In Rainbows. “Poor guys,” Yorke says, “they have a lot of time to think.” Hufford and Edge have managed Radiohead from the beginning, when the band was still called On a Friday and playing Oxford pubs; the download idea was partly a response to the fact that every Radiohead album since Kid A, in 2000, had leaked in some form online.

“There’s a compliment there,” Yorke acknowledges, speaking in a low, unhurried voice, “the fact that people want to get ahold of what you’ve done. But if it’s not the definitive version, if the ends are chopped off, if you haven’t made the choice to do it yourself, it’s a bit unfair. Bad karma. So it felt very liberating to take complete control.

“If I die tomorrow, I’ll be happy that we didn’t carry on working within this huge industry that I don’t feel any connection with,” he continues. “But the idea wasn’t to make a big, significant statement. I mean, we knew it would be messing with things a little bit. But we just wanted to get the album to people who’d been waiting patiently for four years. I really thought it would be a splash in a little pond, and I was surprised at how much the media picked up on it.” Adds Greenwood, “Unlike a lot of Radiohead stuff, this idea really was boredom-driven. Just about avoiding the old.”

There were complaints in certain online circles about the sound quality of the In Rainbows downloads, but surprisingly, considering the sonic complexity of their own records, none of the members of Radiohead are audio geeks. “That sort of hi-fi sound-quality thing really annoys me,” says Jonny Greenwood. “I was in London talking to a label guy once, and we got on to this subject, and I said hi-fi is just about middle-aged men trying to make music sound as good as it did when they were teenagers, and it never will. They’ll never be as excited as they were when they first heard that music coming out of just one speaker. They’ll never get that close to it again.” Greenwood smiles sheepishly. “Later, I found out he’s got this amazing record player and spends all of his time upgrading his system.”

It’s suggested that the pay-what-you-like plan forced people to make an ethical choice about consumption — to actually stop and think, “OK, what is this piece of art, made by someone I feel some sort of connection with, worth to me?” But, Yorke says, “In a way, that was an afterthought. We knew that if we put it out for nothing at all, it would end up costing us an absolute fortune. Simply because you end up having to pay every time someone downloads it. But there’s always been an integrity to the community of people on the Net who follow what we do. ‘Ethical choice’? I don’t know about that.” He smiles. “Maybe if they were buying a goat.”