subject: Radiohead surprises fans again with early album release [print this page] Radiohead surprises fans again with early album release
Almost every student taking marketing and advertising college classes throughout the world would agree that aggressive promotion and hype generation are the best tools to fuel product sales.
Especially in the music industry, where popular songs can become viral in a matter of minutes, the advertising campaign for an artist's album is perhaps more important than the musical content in regards to sales totals.
However, there are several rare exceptions including English quintet Radiohead, who surprisingly released their eighth studio album, The King of Limbs, on Friday. Music fans at colleges and universities across the U.S. rushed to their laptops once they received word that the band's first release since 2007's In Rainbows was available for download.
Over the last two decades, the award-winning alternative rock band has established a reputation as one of the most innovative acts to invade the mainstream. Aside from their unique sound, Radiohead has rewritten the book on how musical artists can release music. On October 10, 2007, the band broke new ground when it released In Rainbows as a digital download exclusively on its website. It allowed customers to choose the price that they wanted to pay for the music.
On January 1, 2008, the CD version of In Rainbows was released in North America. Although Radiohead allowed customers to purchase their music for free for more than two months, the album received rave reviews, eventually generated millions of dollars in albums sales and later won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album. However, the biggest buzz may have surrounded the album's unique release.
Led by frontman Thom Yorke, Radiohead shook things up again this past week. On Monday, the band announced that The King of Limbs would be available for online purchase on Saturday, February 19. However, the group threw everyone another curveball by making the album available for download on Friday, a day earlier than scheduled.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the album download costs $9, which is significantly cheaper than what a CD costs at retail outlets. Individuals who are interested in picking up the CD version will have to wait until March 28.
"A defining characteristic of this career arc has been the way every Radiohead move to wrongfoot their fans has simply made them more devoted, and numerous," wrote Peter Walker and Justin McCurry in the UK newspaper, The Guardian. "The King of Limbs is no difference: amid the flood of Twitter excitement at its arrival came complaints about the band's website freezing under the strain of numbers."
