Radiohead are one of the finest bands ever to have come out of the U.K. However, like all masters of their chosen art, they do like taking their sweet time over crafting their latest work, which will undoubtedly turn out to be a masterpiece.

It’s been a strange few months in terms of what has emerged from the Radiohead camp. For a time it looked as though the group wouldn’t be making any more albums, but that rumor was finally put to bed by Ed O’Brien’s reassurances in October.

The last year or so has seen the odd little tidbit of information about the new Radiohead album revealed. In September 2008, the band claimed most of the album was already completed. And then in May, Colin Greenwood revealed they were at the stage where all the elements were in place and it was just a case of piecing it all together.

But August brought a strange aside when Thom Yorke claimed Radiohead wouldn’t be releasing any new albums, at least not for a long while. He claimed the band didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of recording a long …read more

The issue of illegal filesharing of music has been much debated in recent weeks, thanks to a new effort by the British government to curb the activity. Lily Allen started a blog about the problem, but then got cold feet and walked away. While other artists are pushing for fairness and compromise in how the issue is dealt with.

Radiohead are a part of the Featured Artists Coalition which, although not fans of filesharing, are seeking for a better, longterm solution than the ones being proposed right now. And it was two years ago that Radiohead experimented with a different way …read more

A new Radiohead album is always an event in the same way that a new Muse album is. They aren’t just a collection of songs thrown together at random, they are instead a carefully-constructed set of songs intended to give aural pleasure. A new Muse album is on the way, but it looks like we could have a long wait until the same can be said for a new Radiohead album. In fact, it could never arrive.

Radiohead took the world by storm when they released their last album, In Rainbows. Foregoing a traditional record company-backed release, the British band instead …read more

Radiohead are, without doubt, one of the biggest groups to have emerged from the UK ever. They are unique in being a modern-day British band just as loved in the Stated as they are in their native country.

When the band released In Rainbows in 2007 they also became great innovators, being one of the first artists to try and use the power of the Internet rather than try and rally against the new ways of distributing music.
Now, Radiohead are well on the way to releasing their next album, the eagerly-awaited follow-up to In Rainbows. Back in September, Ed O’Brien revealed …read more

Radiohead are collaborating with their fans in ever more intriguing and interactive ways. Not only did they decide to give their album away for free, but they now seem to be regarding In Rainbows as belonging to the fans as much as it belongs to the band itself.
Such was the case with the new music video for Reckoner, which was actually made by a fan for a competition. The band liked the promo so much that they decided to make it the official video instead of just a contest winner. Thom Yorke was even impressed enough to give the video …read more

The last Radiohead album, In Rainbows, was not only musically brilliant, but was also a revelation for the way it was released. Radiohead decided to eschew giving the album its début on physical formats, and instead chose to release it on the Internet for free (or as near as damn it).
But that all happened almost a year ago now, with the download being available from October 10th, 2007. In Rainbows has since been released on CD and vinyl, but it’s now time to move on, and the band are already working on their next album. In fact most of it …read more

Radiohead may have started the trend, and The Charlatans then got in the act, but Marillion are the latest band to have decided to embrace the Web and give away their new album. Happiness Is The Road is to be a free download on file-sharing sites such.
This deal is different than the Radiohead offer for In Rainbows, where fans were asked to pay what they felt was suitable for the new album. The new Marillion album will be available as a completely free download, with the only catch being a pop-uip box asking file-sharers to give the band their email …read more

When Radiohead offered their new album In Rainbows, for free through their website last year, many industry analysts and bigwigs watched the results very closely to see if the model was workable. The album has since been released on physical formats but the download experiment gained Radiohead a lot of new fans and masses of press.

However, despite the good intentions of the band, it seems that the majority of Radiohead fans decided free just wasn’t cheap enough for them and so downloaded it from illegal sources such as torrent tracking and peer-to-peer sites instead.
The findings come from a joint research …read more

The Mercury Music Prize, sponsored by Nationwide, is the annual award given to the best album by a British or Irish artist released in the previous 12 months. The ceremony isn’t until later in the year, but a short-list is first released, with the name of the 12 artists, and their albums, on it which the judges think are the best of British.

Having said that, the Mercury Music Prize has a history of choosing albums by up and coming artists, rather than necessarily widely known artists, and certainly not the best-selling ones. Which means there are always some huge surprises …read more