Radiohead announced on Monday that they've completed a new album — and in the D.I.Y. spirit of the last one, it'll be released on Saturday (as in this one, Feb. 19) through the band's website.
The album, "The King of Limbs," is Radiohead's first since 2007's "In Rainbows," a record that doubled as a pay-what-you-want, quasi-experiment in new media marketing and distribution.
This time, Radiohead plans to charge everybody.
According to the website, fans can purchase either a digital only version ($9.00 for MP3 files, $14.00 for higher-quality WAV) or a "newspaper album" that includes the digital download, a CD, two clear 10" vinyl records, "many large sheets of artwork, 625 tiny pieces of artwork and a full-colour piece of oxo-degradeable plastic to hold it all together." (The price on that is $48 for the version that comes with MP3s, $53 for WAV.)
The physical album package will ship on May 9, though all orders will get the download release on Saturday.
With no record label obligation — having fulfilled their deal with EMI in 2003 with "Hail to the Thief" — the band has moved at their own pace on purpose.
"In Rainbows" was announced just 10 days before its release through Radiohead's website. With "The King of Limbs," they've cut that window in half to five.
"I like the people at our record company," frontman Thom Yorke told Time while recording "In Rainbows." "But the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'f— you' to this decaying business model."
