You know Radiohead, right? The band that let you set your own price -- including zero dollars -- for their latest album?
Well, Thom Yorke's posse is back with another digital music offer, but this one's not quite so generous. To coincide with the release of the single Nude in the UK, the band is selling parts of the song on iTunes for fans to create their own remixes.
In addition to the official single, there are five tracks, or "stems" available: bass, drum, strings, vocals and guitar. The idea is that Radiohead tragics will seize upon these AAC files -- at the price of AU$1.69 per stem -- and mess around with them in Garage Band until the early hours.
Cool idea, but it's worth noting that -- as dictated by Radiohead in an accompanying message on iTunes -- any masterpieces you create can't be considered yours in legal terms. The words clearly state that if you end up with any bobby dazzling tunes, you'd need to request permission from the band before you "commercially exploit them" (you corporatised, capitalist, establishment members of the bourgeoisie).
It's a curious twist in light of the "our fans determine the value of our art" ethos that underpinned the In Rainbows release.
Nab more info -- and check out fan remixes -- at the Radioheadremix.com site.
The iTunes page.
iconfess
06/04/2008 11:55 AM
I don't know that it's fair to expect all future Radiohead recordings to enter the public domain just because of their 'In Rainbows' experiment but it is curious that they feel the need to charge for the stems. That said, in this age of record companies whinging about declining profits, I'm surprised there's not more of this sort of thing going on. Major labels could flog off their back catalogues stem-by-stem to drooling mash-up nerds, raring for a clean, quantised, isolated sample of a Beatles bassline, Aretha vocal or Johnny Marr guitar.
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pabloperez
08/04/2008 07:30 AM
It just seems kindda silly for radiohead to sell the song parts to be remixed. Many bands have released parts of their tracks to be remixed before, usually for free and under some creative commons license. By selling the remix materials and making it unavailable for lots of countries radiohead seems to be jumping back into music industry's past instead of moving forward.
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