It is not an earth-shaking breakthrough and may disappoint some people. The King of Limbs was released online in February. Anyone looking to get into Radiohead should check out their 50-minute film Scotch Mist. They also frequently broadcast live sessions online. This was released online, asking only for donations (the average donation was £4, more than bands get from typical record deals). They followed this up in 2007 with the release of In Rainbows. Radiohead left their label, EMI, after releasing their sixth album, Hail to the Thief, in 2003. Radiohead’s website has frequently promoted demonstrations and mass movements, such as around the 2009 Copenhagen climate change summit. Though not desperately radical, the band did engage with the anti-capitalist movement – for example, their tour in 2000 was free of corporate logos. Politically, no popular act dovetails so well with modern social movements (or social media). They create image and mood where most rock lyrics fall into Bono-esque bombast. Lead singer and songwriter Thom Yorke’s laconic, gnomic lyrics also stand out. Recent songs incorporate two-step, shuffle and even polyrhythm. The band particularly refreshed their rhythm. For the past decade they have consolidated their unique musical republic established by the album Kid A. While this sparked an unfortunate trend in rock bands making comedown albums, Radiohead skipped that bandwagon. They gave us songs of alienation (and alien abduction) instead of bloated, cocaine-fuelled gibberish. Just as the Velvet Underground stood out in 1967 like a black flower in the blooming summer of love, Radiohead’s OK Computer clashed with the synthetic euphoria of New Labour and Cool Britannia in 1997.
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