Friday, September 16, 2016

"I'm getting too old"

Sticking to your principles can be wearying, as even Thom Yorke seems to have conceded. In a recent interview on Radio 1, he was open about the fact that he no longer has the energy for coming up with creative album release strategies to "circumvent the monsters" - a slightly surprising admission, given the way the last two Radiohead albums In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool as well as his own most recent solo effort Tomorrow's Modern Boxes have found their way into the world:

While Radiohead are probably still some way from appearing at V Festival and soundtracking adverts, I do wonder whether those "monsters" might include Spotify and whether the band might accept defeat or (in the terms set out by Gang Of Four's Dave Allen) stop sticking their heads in the sand and acknowledge the existence of new markets by reluctantly embracing the brave new world of streaming.

(This conveniently gives me another excuse to plug Episode 8 of Sounding Bored, on which we discuss all of the issues surrounding streaming and make mention of the stances taken by Yorke and Allen.)

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