It's not a bad week for Radiohead fans. First, the band announced that they have entered the studio to begin work on their ninth studio album. Then, in the last hour, frontman Thom Yorke was all "by the way, here’s another one I made earlier" and announced his own solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, for immediate release via BitTorrent.The eight track album costs $6, and its distribution seems to be the latest experiment on the part of Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich to bypass "the self-elected gatekeepers." Taking to BitTorrent isn't exactly unexpected behavior from Thom, who described Spotify in 2013 as "the last desperate fart of a dying corpse" and whose band, Radiohead, famously released their 2007 album In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want download. Via a press release and statement on Radiohead's website, the duo of Thom and Nigel explained their plan:As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record.The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files..The files can be anything, but in this case is an 'album'.It's an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around …If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work.Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves.Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers.If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done.The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or 'cloud' malarkey.It's a self-contained embeddable shop front…The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network.Oh yes and it's called
Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.Last time Thom Yorke went solo, he did a pretty decent record called The Eraser, so the frantic excitement here is pretty understandable.You can purchase the files immediately via the embed below, or you can fork out for a deluxe edition here.
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Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.Last time Thom Yorke went solo, he did a pretty decent record called The Eraser, so the frantic excitement here is pretty understandable.You can purchase the files immediately via the embed below, or you can fork out for a deluxe edition here.