Radiohead Chase Rainbows

So unless you've been sleeping for the last two weeks, you might have heard Radiohead were releasing their new album, In Rainbows, on October 10th in a completely new fashion. They are offering the album as a digital download (a leak, if you will) for the price of "whatever." Basically, they bundled their announcement of a new album with the promise of a early leak and the moral ambiguity of allowing users to pay whatever they feel is appropriate for a download.

But there's a catch. As many found out this morning, the quality of the leak (like the old days) was going to be lesser than a real release, 160 kbps as opposed to the more traditional 192 or the way better 256 or 320. Sacrilege to the audiophile set, myself included, and a little underhanded since this wasn't announced up front, but to most, (*cough, myself included) it doesn't matter. We'll still download it.

I'm listening to it right now and it is, of course, impressive. It's Radiohead. It's electro-funky and kinda weird and a little scattered, but haven't they always been a little over the place?

It's been out less than a couple hours, but some people are not impressed. Dude, give it a day.

Further reading (and staring amazingly at crazy Radiohead fans) here: Pitchfork's Guide to In Rainbows.