Wednesday, October 10, 2007

"In the deepest ocean
Bottom of the sea
Your eyes
They turn me
Why should i stay here?
Why should i stay?
I'd be crazy not to follow
Follow where you lead

Your eyes
They turn me
Turn me on to phantoms
I follow to the edge of the earth
And fall off
Everybody leaves
If they get the chance
And this is my chance
I get eaten by the worms
We're fishes
Get towed by the worms
Weird fishes
Weird fishes
Weird fishes
I'll hit the bottom
Hit the bottom and escape

I'll hit the bottom
Hit the bottom to escape
Escape"
- Radiohead, Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi

This song was first played on March 27, 2005 at the Ether Festival in London. The performance featured the Nazareth Orchestra with Jonny on the Ondes Martnot and Thom on vocals. It's featured in their new album, In Rainbows, released today, 4 years after their last album, Hail to the Thief.

I love it.

For this album, Radiohead eschewed convention, opting instead to release it directly via their website for download, allowing the buyer to decide how much to pay for it. The success of this experiment of theirs has proved the point I'd been making all along with regards to intellectual property laws - some things like good music should be made accessible to all regardless of commercial considerations, and good musicians need not fear the mp3 download phenomenon (if your music is good, your fans would go out and pay for your album nevertheless, at least I would; apparently the majority of the orders Radiohead received was in fact for the 40pound discbox which came with a vinyl disc, CD and artwork). Granted, this model may not work for any artist - but Radiohead has just the right amount of industry respect, existing fans, and guts to pull it off.

And I'm pleased.

-- tee @ 9:42 pm |