Free Radiohead

Monday evening a cryptic e-mail from my all-time favorite band slipped past the spam filter:

This is just a quick note to let you know that Radiohead have made an album. It is called In Rainbows and it is now available to pre-order exclusively from Radiohead.com

I was puzzled. Was this some kind of joke? Consider the source after all...

Turns out it's not a joke and may hasten the demise of the traditional way of distributing music. Basically, Radiohead is offering their new album for free exlusively on their website (fans can choose how much they want to pay for the download)! Shane Richmond of the Telegraph blogs on the implications of Radiohead's bold move. They aren't the first to do something like this, but they are the biggest. Derek Webb, another visionary artist, did the same thing with his Free Derek Webb campaign.

I still appreciate the experience of going to a great record store (like this one) and purchasing an actual CD, but if the record labels and retailers continue to gouge consumers, then perhaps they deserve to go the way of the dinosaur.