Thoughts on Radiohead´s unreleased album

There´s a great Thom Yorke interview up on Pitchdork, which, itself, is featured in this months Wired.

The interview is interesting if you, like me, wonder what will happen when Radiohead releases their 7th studio album. Hail to the Thief was the last album signed to EMI - and Thom Yorke recently released his solo album on the Beggars Group indie label XL Records. It seems Radiohead themselves don´t know.

For a while now I´ve been thinking: Why don't you take it further. Use your status, your faithful fanbase. Release it on your own label, XL Recordings, or some other progressive, indie label. As an album, or a series of singles. You get your 12", the works. But - simultaneously, release it online, under an open license that allows your fans to do with it what they normally do, without the bullshit. You can use the Creative Commons Non-commercial / Sharealike license, or something similar.
Heck, while you´re at it, release the session files for the recordings. Go "open source". Or "free" as in "free speech", not "free beer" (see the Free Software Definition).
This way new listeneres can fileshare, sample and remix non-commercially - what they´d normally do.

Your "album" will become something else (what Eric Steuer calls The Infinite Album" in this months Wired) and you'll have complete, creative freedom.

Polar caps melting, anti-war, anti-corporatism - if you insist on feeding them your art for the sake of comfort, you´re part of it. Just a thought.

Thom Yorke:
"(..) not having a label isn't a big deal. It was interesting doing something with XL because it's very mellow. There's no corporate ethic. All [major labels are] like that. Stupid little boys' games-- especially really high up.

It's not such an important question whether we go with a major or an indie or whether we choose to completely do it ourselves. We haven't really talked about it lately, surprisingly enough.

(..) it ends up being just a pointless question unless, as you said, you've got something important and you have to get it out. Then you have to think about it.

It's funny that some people focus on that. When we stopped, I was really into the idea of trying to mess about trying to fuck with the system, whatever. The system's in collapse anyway. Just watch it go.

"(..)in America, there seems to be more focus on the idea that it's important to do things differently. In Britain, it's not an issue".

(from The Observer)
"'Will we re-sign to EMI?' (..) 'I don't know. I don't think we'd sign sign to anybody. Give someone a record when it's done if we feel that they can do it justice. That's it.'