Radiohead: Logo #288

The Radiohead "Death Bear" was designed by Stanley "Dan Rickwood" Donwood in 2000, rivaled only by the crying minotaur from their Grammy-winning "Amnesiac" LP in 2000. Radiohead have about six great songs in them - the rest is industry and gratuitous enigmaticism. Look for late-career forays into jazz, opera, ballet and other gracefully aging irrelevancies. My review of the paradigm-punching "In Rainbows" CD that released last year follows.

I've learned that there’s another version of English that’s spoken across the world. It’s called “Gimme.” So Radiohead offers their latest album as chiefly an online download option. You pay as much as you want for it when you order it. On 2007 October 10, the day of its release, purportedly 1.2 million copies were downloaded. As one of the blog wags so eloquently crystallized it, “So 1.2 million downloads = $20.82?” And yes, while there are going to be an overwhelming contingent of stalwart do-gooders whose heart lies squarely in the right place and will clearly pay generously, the “Information wants to be free” crowd has essentially rendered music almost completely worthless with the support of this paradigm. And when you free that “free free free!” toothpaste genie, no way is he going back in that tube. Worthless. Disposable. Gimme. If a violently huge band such as Radiohead gives away their records, the implicit logic is this: well, why should I give a shit about your crappy band? Your band who scrimped and slaved to put an album out, spending countless hours perfecting something true and good, only to be faced with the concept of scorn heaped upon your labors because you dared put a fixed price on what your time and creative energies were worth? Oh, a copy of the album? Thanks – just let me put it on the hard-drive containing all the other nameless records by bands I never heard of before and never want to hear again. I’ll get to it, baby – I’ll get to it…