Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I paid £4...

..for the new Radiohead album, 'In Rainbows. I thought that £4 was probably more than the band would get if I bought a CD, or downloaded it from iTunes, but it was less than I would be prepared to pay for a CD. I almost never buy downloaded music, because I hate the DRM schemes that limit the devices on which I can play it. If I buy a CD, I can listen to it in my car, in any one of the 6 rooms in my house that have a CD player or three rooms with a computer, or I can rip it and listen to it on my MP3 player. If I lose my player, or a hard disc, I don't lose my music. I know I can get round the DRM if I can be bothered to do a bit of research on the net, but it is the principle of the thing. So I still buy CDs, usually from on-line retailers now that Fopp is gone.

What about the music? Well, I've only listened all the way through once, but I like it better than 'Kid A', or 'Amnesiac', or 'Hail to the Thief', but less than 'The Bends' or 'OK Computer' - it's rockier than the last three releases without being a return to the dense, complex textures of the earlier stuff. I do wonder how the rest of the band feel - it seems to me that everything they've done since 'OK Computer' has sounded like a Thom Yorke solo project rather than a full band effort. Still, I guess they get a fair share of the cash.

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