The UK indie rock band Radiohead is preparing to release a new digital album online. The album entitled, “In Rainbows,” débuts the 10th of October, and so far several million Radiohead fans have pre-ordered the album.
Rather than the usual CD release, “In Rainbows” will be released exclusively as a digital album, and only available online as a download from the band’s web site. All of the new tracks are encoded at 160 kbps in MP3 format, and — here’s the kicker — with no copyright protection.
The entire digital download album takes up approximately 50 MB of space as a zip file, prompting some web experts to wonder if Radiohead’s web site can handle the extreme traffic they will likely be receiving on the morning of the 10th. With so many fans set to download the album at the same time, the possibility of a server overload or crash is certainly real.
Radiohead jumped on the digital release bandwagon early are on and have been outspoken critics of digital copyright protection. The decision to release their newest album without copyright protection surprised many in the industry. But then, going against conventional music industry wisdom has always been Radiohead’s forte.
All Radiohead fans who have pre-ordered copies of the new release will receive a unique activation code by e-mail at roughly the same time on Wednesday, October 10. The band’s Web hosting company, Vert Tech, insists that they’ll be able to deal with the huge amount of bandwidth used by the millions of fans downloading the new album at once. Other web experts, such as Wired magazine’s Elliott Van Buskirk, are not so sure.
Radiohead skyrocketed to indie rock success in the early 90s with the release of their most popular album to date, “The Bends.” The band maintains an intensely loyal cult following all around the world, and especially at home in the UK. The release of their new album is something of a “thank you” to their hard-core fans. For example, the digital download of “In Rainbows” is priced at a mere $10US.
By taking the distribution of their music into their own hands, Radiohead continues to break new ground, while maintaining their outsider status. Music industry insiders have criticized the band’s decision to release “In Rainbows” online, and specifically at such low price.
At the end of the day though, it’s just another example of Radiohead doing what they do best: thumbing their nose at the record industry, while maintaining their highly personal relationship with their fans.
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