Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/tomorrows-modern-boxes

Opener is pretty dull on first listen :(

is it only in mp3 or is there a lossless versh for people to download this album

just let me fucking buy it on itunes already

Hate it when Thom Yorke makes Markers angry :(

Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

again the delivery system will get more attention than the content.

Yeah, I don't do bittorrent. Guess this is where I get off the Thom Yorke bus. (I mean, I'm not that gutted considering how terrible that last Atoms for Peace album was.)

He should pay me what he thinks it's worth for me to download it.

stealing that

I don't get why he chose BitTorrent. Seems stupid, there's no advantage or innovation. Might as well put a rar file behind a £6 button on his website.

https://twitter.com/maura/status/515534301338025986
^this

Yup. Beyoncé just putting her album in iTunes really didn't need announcements or explanations for ppl unaware of bittorrent.

there are a bunch of advantages to bit torrent, or at least the establishment of it as a licit distro model; if somebody else was to initially host whatever artwork they've made, & could count on even moderate popularity to keep it seeded & accessible, they'd be able to disperse their work with some relief from hosting costs, & while comporting with a generally-democratic-feeling protocol for distributing the files. i don't know how the pay part of this works, yet, but peer to peer sharing has a neat, diffusive, sort-of-microloan efficiency to it.

Remember when the idea of a Thom Yorke solo record excited people? He's really proving the worth of his usual collaborators.

like, ok, this way Thom doesn't have iTunes or even Bandcamp taking a percentage, fine. but that only matters if an artist already has a dedicated fanbase that will seek out their record and spend money on it.

xp maybe i don't get the nuances of bittorrent though since i don't use it (and therefore i'm getting a friend to send the album to me, when i would have paid for it otherwise)

I can see labels loving the idea of cutting hosting cots yeah. Thanks schlump.

but Thom Yorke lol, he'll never win won't he.

Or you can shell out £30 for some art-vinyl in a static-proof bag.

Speaking as someone who owns the last two Radiohead albums on vinyl I've never actually played, I'm kind of... over the fetish appeal of such objects.

Just seems like a gimmick to draw attention to the release, and if the album were that good, it wouldn't have needed the gimmick.

What happens if/when the torrent dies from lack of popularity and it becomes impossible to download because only like 6 people are seeding it?

and to answer Maura's question, the letter was mainly distributed by social media no? that's how I found out. I don't see how that's the old model.

i don't totally follow - like that somebody takes a percentage matters in all cases, right, irrespective of whether you have an audience? - but it's still really valuable if somebody's just trying to figure out actual, functional, replicable independent distribution models. the internet is so promising & democratic & it still feels frustrating, sometimes, that the basic logistics of like, indie-ish, old-school-diy-analogous enterprise aren't fully developed yet. it means a lot to be self-sufficient, in principle as well as in terms of percentages, & the idea that people could distribute things very minimally & directly is appealing & empowering. there is a weird cyclical kind of moore's-law-rhythmic thing that means that ello will eventually be garbage, that everybody will periodically have to divorce themselves from once-benign proprietary go-tos, but there's still so much potential. the note about this album seems pretty ostentatious, to me, straining for the voguish feel of a kind of ripply innovative paradigm shifting ~experiment~. but it would be really great if people could avoid paying hosting for a film they made & uploaded! & the general technological landscape of the internet & our isp-afforded bandwidth allowances doesn't inherently prohibit that, & so maybe by using the spotlight afforded to him he gets to push forward a way for people to sell flowers direct from farmer -> consumer.

I don't think its a gimmick, I think Yorke and co are genuinely interested in new models of distribution, its naive at worst. I mean in that case any marketing idea is a gimmick.

06 There Is No Ice (For My Drink).mp3

I was having keming probs on my cell phone and it looked like Thorn Yorke - Tornorrow's rnodem boxes :(

the letter was also released by nasty little man to the press, who dutifully amplified the signal.

“Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers" indeed.

What happens if/when the torrent dies from lack of popularity and it becomes impossible to download because only like 6 people are seeding it?

― Greer, Friday, September 26, 2014 2:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like: this is an imperfection, at the moment, but i'm careful to say above that i'm talking about lower rather than zero hosting costs. archive.org is the only place i'm aware of that uses torrents licitly, to distribute its content, & it runs two trackers hosting its files. in the absence of others, you'd be downloading from archive.org, i think; when something's popular the hosting is widely defrayed & shared by whoever still has it. also just to be pedantic six people seeding it is fine.

And "Thom Yorke" and "Nigel Godrich" will certainly be more successful at this than "some guy." Does nobody remember the Saul Williams/Trent Reznor experiment, which took place (and struggled) in a less crowded, less diffuse landscape?

using your own popularity and fame to promote an idea of yours? how vile.

i don't totally follow - like that somebody takes a percentage matters in all cases, right, irrespective of whether you have an audience? - but it's still really valuable if somebody's just trying to figure out actual, functional, replicable independent distribution models.

true, but for me, the fact that you don't get 100% of the money when someone pays for a download is one of the smaller problems facing musicians these days. if you've reached the point where more than a handful of listeners are willing to give you money for downloads, then you've already cleared the tougher hurdles.

xp

06 There Is No Ice (For My Drink).mp3

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Friday, September 26, 2014 12:20 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maura otm - i basically said the same thing on my twitter only not as well!

xxxp what would be the bigger problems musicians are facing these days? i am not a musician and i'd be interested to hear about it.

sure, that's fair, jordan. i am glad there are things like bandcamp & kickstarter, &c, & that seems like a good model where somebody taking a cut isn't necessarily inappropriate (idk anything about the numbers involved, maybe somebody disagrees. but it's so satisfying to think that things can be refined & that people can move closer toward control. even with little things. i slowly learned html over the last couple of years, & can now make like, adequate websites, if i need to; a lot of art has always been bound up in the character of its presentation & transmission & the progress in reducing impediments to the platonic-ultimate of that is nice to watch.

I don't know why I'm experiencing such, well, not just reaction, but revulsion to this idea.

It might be one of my first genuine "I'm old, and I don't get it" moments, when confronted with technology.

But I think it's deeper than that. It's not that I'm not aware of what bittorrent is, it's just that I have a *hugely* negative reaction to it. I'd no more go on bittorrent to get something, even legally, than I'd got on reddit or 4chan to have a conversation. It is, to me, a tainted thing, a tainted concept, associated with deep unpleasantness. And maybe that's unfair, but it's still my association.

And it's like, Thom Yorke wants to make his music available to ~bittorrent type people~ (libertarians in Pirate Bay t-shirts or whatever) but not to "middle aged people who like to walk into a shop and buy a CD" then he's making a deliberate statement about what audience he wants - as he is making a statement about distribution structures or whatever - and that audience feels like it's deliberately excluding me, and people like me. And it feels a gross slap in the face after 21 years of fandom.

So, its basically that the medium is more important than the message?

The medium is the massage, certainly.

Thom Yorke will personally burn a copy of this for any old person who wants an actual CD.

i just think "trying to get you to pay for something on a platform built off swapping other people's shit for free" is a funny way to be innovative. it's like some "mafioso trying to go straight" shit.

"My new tobacco brand will only be available off the back of stolen trucks"

I'd no more go on bittorrent to get something, even legally, than I'd got on reddit or 4chan to have a conversation. It is, to me, a tainted thing, a tainted concept, associated with deep unpleasantness....And it's like, Thom Yorke wants to make his music available to ~bittorrent type people~ (libertarians in Pirate Bay t-shirts or whatever) but not to "middle aged people who like to walk into a shop and buy a CD" then he's making a deliberate statement about what audience he wants - as he is making a statement about distribution structures or whatever - and that audience feels like it's deliberately excluding me, and people like me

feelin this/cosign

(altho tbf full confession I have never listened to Radiohead/Yorke and don't plan to start now)

Van Horn Street, the point is that TY and NG are touting this as a model that could be easily replicable, which is a stance that's a bit ignorant of their own privilege.

lol croup

also

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-thom-yorke-sells-new-record-through-bit-torrent-bundles-20140926-story.html#page=1

The Bundle for "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" is the first with a gate that collects a payment. Matt Mason, BitTorrent's chief content officer, said "paygates" took this long to develop because "we're not building a Web-based experience that's only going to work in North America." It's easy to add a storefront to a website, Mason said; it's much harder to create a transferable one that works wherever someone might be using BitTorrent.

Yorke and Godrich were enthusiastic supporters of the idea from the start, Mason said. Although Yorke and his bandmates weren't planning on releasing anything for a couple of years, a conversation with Mason in the studio over Christmas changed their minds, he said. "They got it into their heads ... they had to be first, because of who they are."

The feeling was mutual. "We really, really wanted them to be first, because of who they are."

so this album was straight up INSPIRED by the possibility of putting a paywall on bittorrent

I don't have enough "UGH" for this right now.

Exit Song (For A Chief Content Officer)

well this record certainly sounds made for airplay at a tastefully appointed office

man...eliminating the middle man between user data and the artist...the possibilities....nigel, hand me those bongos...i just had an idea...

xxp i don't agree with their intentions, twice they use the word 'experiment' and twice 'if it works'. they have been trying to find new models for a while now, and the fact that they've moved from the in rainbows model show a little amount of self criticism.

just to throw this into everything: i remember it being really interesting when whichever radiohead record was released at short notice digitally for pay-what-you-want came out (in rainbows, right?), how afterwards there were weird pitchfork stories of like i think kim gordon & other people saying, WELL: I DON'T THINK THIS BUSINESS MODEL IS GOING TO WORK. & it had felt like such a beautiful, sensitive approach to how people actually behaved at the time, detached from a kind of confused, atavistic procedure that was still being carried out all the time inert to changes in the landscape. like records appear online, always, a little earlier than they're released, & are downloaded, freely, in rar files, & that's become this kind of popular-if-demographically-cliquish preview period; & then a physical or official-digital record arrives subsequently & is or isn't bought. & all they did was attach money to the first part of this, where people were definitely going to download an mp3 version of a record freely. & because that was a new, abstract, difficult-to-quantify commodity - what if you had to buy the leak, separate from the eventual product - they didn't set a price. that feels so intuitive to me! a lot of diy stuff happens along these lines; i am thinking of grouper, say, who is just always pressing five hundred records & selling them & then repressing them if people want more of them. it has awkward dimensions to it - like people are probably excluded, temporarily, from getting the record they want - but at the same time it's a sensitive, responsive, controllable way of doing things that fits with somebody's appetite or means or w/e. this just feels like sensible, progressive experimentation to me; that is obviously not without downsides but cf-winston-churchill-on-democracy neither are any of the other terrible options.

They should threaten to send people the new U2 album if they don't download the Thom Yorke.

curious if yorke's getting any kind of advance or equity from bittorrent for this. Be kind of ridiculous if they've got top officers of a tech company hanging out over the holidays and all they're getting out of it is the "chance" to experiment and a decent rate

i love the twist in this

And for Yorke, there's the risk -- no, the guarantee -- that some of those who buy "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" will offer copies of it free through BitTorrent and other file-sharing mechanisms online, removed from the original Bundle and its gate. But then, that's true for every downloadable song sold on iTunes.

Actually, Mason said, he's seen the opposite happen. Bundles are showing up on pirate sites, and in some cases have been more popular than the versions without gates. Granted, none of those Bundles required people to pay for content. Still, Mason said, research shows that people feel differently about artists who offer them content directly. "They're also willing to pay a slightly higher price when they think the money's going directly to the artist," he said.

And it's like, Thom Yorke wants to make his music available to ~bittorrent type people~ (libertarians in Pirate Bay t-shirts or whatever)

this ain't 2005

I was going to say, like... wait, they're charging money for this?

This is a test-run for charging for BitTorrent content?

Like, OK, yeah, let me just give my bank details to an org filled with pirates, libertarians and haX0rs! What a brilliantly safe idea!

How about no.

but thanks to the data yorke will now know everything about what kind of ding-a-ling pays for a bittorrent and then fills in a survey about it

Yeah, like:

Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers. If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done

but how can artists who haven't sold tens of millions of albums globally, don't have built-in fanbases and aren't guaranteed mainstream press for their every album release replicate this and have success? This was also true of their "pay what you want" approach to In Rainbows' release.

banks are filled with pirates, libertarians & hax0rs

you may not get as many credit card numbers as thom yorke will, but you can still get more people's credit card numbers through bittorrent's paywall than you would through the old channels

The only thing I trust less than a haX0r in a fedora & an Assange shirt is a haX0r in a suit with venture capital behind them. Double-plus-no.

banks can be regulated, prosecuted, nationalized, etc.

xp

greer do you think it would be a crazy dystopian alternate universe future if, in two years from now, it was possible to record a horrible ukelele album, right click on the 64kbps files you made of it & choose compress to paywalled .torrent file, uploading it for people to choose not to buy online, y/n

i guess none of you bought it? (i did, for an assignment.) payment goes through paypal.

that's fair. probably not desperate to go slinging by card details around there either. but a lot of this feels like Problems With Being Alive Now more than it does flaws in this terrible scheme. like doesn't Home Depot periodically haemorrhage card info under pressure? maybe it is shitty & nobody should buy it but I don't think exploring new options in clumsy inchoate forms isn't worthwhile.

confirmation of libertarian overlord ^^ xp

"They got it into their heads ... they had to be first, because of who they are."

The feeling was mutual. "We really, really wanted them to be first, because of who they are."

"Nigel, do you realize who we are??"

first listen, i think it's pretty good. some of the tracks near the end reminded me of tago mago's bullshit tracks.

xxxp what would be the bigger problems musicians are facing these days? i am not a musician and i'd be interested to hear about it.

― Van Horn Street, Friday, September 26, 2014 12:32 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know there are other threads about it, but let's see, people would rather stream for free via Youtube or a subscription service and those are not paying much to artists, general signal-to-noise ratio increasing, hype cycle is crazy, touring is expected to replace selling recordings for professional musicians but that's getting increasingly expensive and hard to do on a dues-paying level. seems like licensing is the only really decent source of money, if you can get it? idk.

i would considering paying, but not for some bittorrent shit. still waiting for mbv to show up on itunes too

marillion did this like 5 years ago (released an album on bittorrent).

payment goes through paypal

LOL

oh yeah, doesn't paypal take a percentage (on one end or the other) anyway? haha.

i wish he would have done bandcamp just to convince more big artists to go through bandcamp because that site rules as far as i'm concerned both as someone who's used it to put out music and someone who's used it to buy music and someone who's used it to stream music

Well, having now heard one track from it ( http://vimeo.com/107265790 ) I'm relieved that it's not as terrible as AfP (though granted that's not that much of an ask).

It's kinda frustrating, because based on that, I think I probably would like to hear more. But not if this is the only way of accessing it, no.

There are tracks all over Tumblr now, so I guess it's a question of rounding them up. I would still prefer to, y'know, buy a CD in a shop like the fucking luddite freak that I am, i guess.

agree to the bandcamp thing.

Atoms for Peace wasn't particularly memorable melody-wise but it's a very rich and distinctive-sounding album imo. i wish King of Limbs had sounded that good, instead of sorta muddy and thin.

3x to Bandcamp.

4th to BC

Found an album stream on Tumblr and I'm about three songs in.

And it's pleasant yeah, in the way that pretty much anything that has Thom Yorke singing over the top of it sounds lovely, even kinda boring garageband electronica. But really, if this were the same garageband electronica with anyone else singing over the top of it (and really, there's no effort at all to integrate the voice into the sonic landscape, like I've been listening the past few weeks to FKA Twigs and Aphex Twin, and c'mon, the ways in which talented producers can wend vocals into the music, try a little harder, y'know?) I don't know that I'd be persisting.

I keep waiting for it to really grab me and lift me above a duty listen...? Maybe this next song will?

Kinda realising now, how much of Radiohead is about the rhythm section for me. And the difference between Thom Yorke singing over the tightest rhythm section in the world vs TY singing over garageband electronica is really quite noticeable.

OK, the 4th track (The Mother Lode?) is quite pretty and spacey and floaty and wibbles on nicely.

I also like There Is No Ice (for my drink), I think.

it's on Youtube now

Is it monetised?

it's sequestered in a gated community run by gangsters

xp (because if it is and Yorke isn't getting a cut, irony)

Soundcloud/Tumblr is still better sound quality for lower bandwidth...

Thing is, it's something that, if I were still ~obsessed~ with Thom Yorke, I would probably put the time into listening to deeply, and getting acquainted with and getting super obsessed with the tiny sounds or the lyrics or something. But I'm just so irritated by the whole rigamarole surrounding it that I'm not going to put the effort or the listens in.

You know, I'll come back to it in 6 months or whatever when they decide to do a normal release, and then I'll come round to it, I guess.

Is it monetised?

pop-up ads. i'm sure he'll get a cut, even if someone else uploaded it.

i guess bandcamp does take a much greater percentage than paypal, but still.

xp Well he can contact YouTube, and they'll redirect all monies earned to him. Just like Nintendo do.

There's the 10% cut that Bittorrent is taking, too: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/09/26/bittorrent-adds-paygate-feature-direct-fan-publishing-platform-bundle-takes-10-cut/

It's interesting, kinda, that I've heard so much about the monetisation and the percentage splits, and so little about the music. (Well, not really interesting, but still, telling.)

OH GOD I HAVE BECOME A HATER. BAN ME FROM THIS THREAD, BAN ME FROM LIFE.

bit torrent isn't rigmarole. it's simple and effective, it doesn't exclude anybody and it isn't associated with deep unpleasantness. the idea of feeling revulsion at something so simple is weird.

Wow, and here comes a man to explain why my emotions are wrong, time to remove the bookmark from the thread and go to bed. Thanks! Goodnight.

here comes another man to explain why your emotions are wrong. oh fuck you're already in bed.

sooooo, i like the warbly, old-cassette piano some of these tracks.

and wow 'Truth Ray'

I don't get the ridiculous track names but Mother Lode might be one of the best solo tracks he has ever released. The whole thing is pretty enjoyable... liking it better than Amok on first listen.

Ok end of the first listen. Highlights for me are: Mother Lode, Truth Ray and Nose Grows Some.

The vocal melodies to some tracks sound like they were quickly improvised over the electronic tracks, they're not very characteristic, but then, I guess they don't have to be.
The electronic production is Thom's best and most interesting yet. Makes his previous efforts sound amateurish there's some great rhythmic stuff going on... it sounds like he is emulating his influences (FlyLo, Burial, Modeselektor, Apparat) with varying degrees of success. It took him three albums but it seems like he has finally achieved the electronic sound he was after.

It seems some of you are too concentrated on the torrent aspect and haven't listened to the thing yet so here's a stream in soundcloud if you guys want to take a listen without paying:

https://soundcloud.com/tyrh/sets/tmb

hey if people are more interested in an artist's self-hyping about innovative content distribution than the artist's work, blame the artist

tell HIM "it's about the music, man"

fripp/dmglive has been releasing all of the cleaned up bootlegs and some studio things via bittorrent for ages. (but not any of the KC re-releases as, probably, they know the fans will pay a premium for the physical object). in any case, it's hardly an earth shattering model.

wouldn't be the first time someone told him robert fripp beat him to the punch

Really? It doesn't seem to me like self-hyping. Unexpected releases available for immediate download are becoming a standard distribution method. None of you are cool for not being impressed; it's not supposed to be impressive in the first place. You are assuming it's a gimmick because this is Thom Yorke.

i take it you didn't read the press release

what part of this sounds to you like someone who thinks they're using a standard distribution method and that you shouldn't be impressed

http://blog.bittorrent.com/2014/09/26/tomorrows-modern-boxes/

or the quotes above from the bittorrent exec about how excited thom and co were about being "first"

i read it as 'hey we thought maybe that was good idea let's try this' more than 'hey i'm changing the music industry my name is thom yorke'

and there is exactly one sentence about the music. point remains that if people are chattering about bittorrent, that's clearly on thom.

Ok, I'll pick the bait:

They are indeed the first to charge for a torrent file are they not?

What do I feel about the distribution method? Reading about his stances on itunes, spotify and his previous experience with big record labels I feel like Thom is honestly trying to legitimize a better means of music distribution, more than the idea of being 'I was there first'.BitTorrent is seen only as an illegal download method. This kind of move by Yorke is trying to show future artists that they don't need itunes etc. It is truly not about the money with this guy. He just seems to have a personal war against the current consumption of music and is using his fame to explore these paths.

Of course, having money helps not caring about the money. Thom is one of those artists that could put out an album inside a jelly donut and people would buy it, so he can use whatever method he wants. For the rest of the artists, you probably need to use ALL the methods simultaneously.

fyi i'm with thom on the fact that the record industry sucks, streaming is a joke for artists, etc etc etc. i just think putting up a "for sale" sign in the middle of a place built off swapped stolen goods is a joke, and if he's not getting anything for all the publicity he's giving bittorrent inc, he's a fool.

So, yes in a way Thom is trying to drag attention to the distribution method but I think deep down it's not as a marketing gimmick to sell this album but to generate discussion about the problems of music consumption nowadays.

Why does he think he will change the face of music all by himself or that a single release will bring down Spotify/Itunes an all the current models? I have no idea, but it's nice that he's at least trying. Weird ideals but whatever. At least he isn't trying to force-feed you his album like U2 did. I can see the end-of-year comparisons about good vs bad practices already.

I think putting the release on Bittorrent of all places is kind of the point?

Bittorrent needs to clean up his act a little bit and I guess they're receiving money off every sale so they're definitely happy about testing out a business model from this experiment and Thom wants to prove that even in the most unlikely place people will pay for your work if they think you're trying to make an honest 'connection' with your audience. Will it work? I don't fucking care.

a better means of music distribution

"better" for who

let's not pretend like it would be some hugely onerous task for Thom to front the money to print vinyl (or CDs or tapes or 8-tracks or what-the-fuck-ever) to stores and get it picked up by a distributor, which would enable other people in the supply chain that aren't horrible gangsters like bittorrent to make some money.

to for stores

that should say

There's a vinyl format that you can buy as well (a tad expensive at $50, though).

Surely the point is there aren't that many 100K selling albums that aren't up on iTunes these days? Isn't that point that if he can do it, why can't yer Beyonces etc?

He's kicked up a bit of dust and all of sudden he's an ugh pariah. Whereas if he'd just put it on all the normal distro channels like a good boy, it wouldn't even be an issue, and everyone would be talking about the music rather than anything else. Surely smth is wrong with that picture.

i think it's a bit absurd to pretend "all of a sudden" he's a pariah. obv non-fans found him obnoxious before this, obv plenty of his fans still love him

Yes I don't get why people in this place are hating on this simply because of the distribution method. It's not ill-intended, maybe extremely naive but his intentions seem pretty clear to me.

I just want to talk about the actual music. :(

then do it

I already did but it's no fun when all you guys want to do is talk about bittorrent.

but if you need people to actively ignore material provided by the artist about distribution, etc, and not make with the snark, you picked an odd place to pitch your tent

Lol @ $50 vinyl who does he think he is neil young

thom is like a neil young where trans won a grammy

Lol @ $50 vinyl who does he think he is neil young

― Οὖτις

You said you wanted mo money for the other people in the supply chain did you not?

" just think putting up a "for sale" sign in the middle of a place built off swapped stolen goods is a joke"

― da croupier, Saturday, September 27, 2014 1:19 AM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously? Surprised by the hatred towards BitTorrent here tbh. For you it's just a black market, for Branwell Bell it's an incomprehensible hax0r Assange thing? Come now.

Bitttorrent in theory is a great medium: it decentralizes content, it comes closest to a democratic way of sharing data or content than anything else. Just because it started out as a "place built off swapped stolen goods" doesn't mean it, as a distribution means, should be rendered a failure or criminal medium. In that respect, I applaud Yorke's attempt to get his fair dues (and let's be fair: 6 quid for an album ain't much) through torrents.

What bothers me is even for Yorke this can't really be about embracing bittorrent. The distribution model doesn't really matter when you add a 'pay here' sign. Whether it takes you to a YSI link, a self hosted rar file or a torrent, it doesn't matter. It's like he chose torrents as a novelty thing. It doesn't actually change anything about the way music is distributed, it doesn't do anything for bittorrent in itself. It is rather pointless, this. There's nothing to prove here, not this way.

(I got my copy of the record from what.cd. Illegally. Downloaded nearly 10,000 times since the record came out. )

you realize we basically said the same thing, except i used language acknowledging that bittorrent inc made a lot of money off ripping off artists

if it was just a black market i don't think they'd have a chief content officer to send to yorke's house to push their new model

and just in case someone wants to state the obvious, yes record companies rip off artists too, but primarily through disadvantageous contracts, not by providing platforms for people to trade music illegally and then running ads and charging premium for antivirus software.

Yes I realize. Mr. Freedom Fighter Yorke using evil corporate paypal is some next level hypocrisy too.

I really liked "A Brain in a Bottle" on one listen on good headphones!

Moka how much of that $50 do you really think is store markup

distribution - i'm amazed at all the anger and resentment on this thread. yeah, if they were going to continue experimenting with distribution methods they would have been better off going with bandcamp. and going with bittorrent means that it's going to keep a decent chunk of people from listening it (until it inevitably goes up on itunes in a few months) because they don't want to spend the 10 minutes it requires to learn how bittorent works. but jeez it's just someone putting their album out using an alternative method, it's not like there's a lamb opening a seal with a beast nearby

music - the track order is a little weird, since songs 4-8 are all better than the first three. i really like the production on this. i was a fan of the atoms for peace album and the eraser, but the sound of it was starting to get really sterile, and that inhumanity started to leak into King of Limbs (another unfairly maligned album imo). but certain songs on here sound much more natural and lived in ('nose grows some' in particular).

Moka how much of that $50 do you really think is store markup

― Οὖτις, sábado 27 de septiembre de 2014 2:35 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was joking, $50 for a vinyl record is ridiculous.

Nose Grows Some is beautiful. Radiohead/Thom Yorke always have such great ending tracks.

da croupier
Posted: September 27, 2014 at 12:05:26 AM
thom is like a neil young where trans won a grammy

lol

You know what? I *wish* I found more to talk about, and indeed to like about the music. I wish there were something that drew me in, and even made me want to listen to it again, rather than this vague sense of "oh, so that's Thom's new album."

I'm not someone who found him obnoxious before, and thinks this is a dick move. I'm someone with over two decades of fandom who thinks this is a dick move. So you can hardly accuse me of being prejudiced here.

More than anything, I'm disappointed that the music seemed so... flimsy and nothingy. And not in a sense that creates a floaty, beautiful sense of space, just like it was rushed out and didn't fully take the time to put the details in. It doesn't sound like his idols. It sounds like a guy who really loves a lot of that music, fucking about trying to do the same thing, fairly unsuccessfully, but because he's got one of the most beautiful voices in the western world, one puts up with the boring, stilted beats and the wishy-washy textures.

I dunno if it's him or me. It's entirely possible that it's me. That I used to feel an intense sense of connection to his music, and that gave the music an emotional charge which drew me in? Now that sense of connection is diminishing, the charge no longer works to bind me to the music on an emotional level? I would need more time with the record to work it out. The Eraser was something that took time to forge a connection, but I did connect. AMOK was something that no matter how many times I tried with that record, I could not connect to it.

I probably won't put the time in, probably won't be *able* to, because of the format of the record's release. (I don't have the bandwidth to listen to it 10 times on Soundcloud to make up my mind!) Which is maybe a shame, or maybe just a sign that this artist and I have gone in such different directions that it's time to let go of my fandom.

it might have been mentioned already, but dj shadow released new music through bit torrent a few years back, before thom. the deal might have been a bit different, but its not like thom was the first to think about doing this. either way, im not sure about using torrents to release new music, or if its a model that will work, but then people thought no one would pay for mp3s after napster etc, so who knows. but its better and more interesting than simply putting another album on itunes and giving all your money to them, though bandcamp might have been a nicer gesture. dont really care to listen to the album.

Just spent 20 on the phone to my bank due to suspicious activity on my account after buying this.

this is an instant classic that us critics and music buffs will be talking about for years to come. it somehow balances that inhumane steriltiy of the early stuff with a more organic "lived in" vibe that seems very 2014

i'm predicting a solid eighter from the pitchfork boys and a possible bnm award. and why the hell not? we need more artists like this who are willing to push the boundaries of this lil' thing we call "music" - someone like tom yorke deserves more industry recognition. grammy? the coveted mercury prize? let's not speak too soon, but i have a funny feeling that ol' tommy will making space on his mantelpiece this christmas... and i'm not talking about greeting cards!

anyone know if anthony fantando has weighed in on this one yet?

There's the 10% cut that Bittorrent is taking, too

For comparison, Apple takes around 30% off iTunes sales.

found this interesting: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-thom-yorke-sells-new-record-through-bit-torrent-bundles-20140926-story.html#page=1

Exit Music (For A Startup Office)

zing!

Ok so I guess this is not a popular opinion so far but I do love this. It's very warm and unassuming where I found the AFP album very cold and lifeless. This makes me excited for Radiohead's LP9 I'm one of those few who loved TKOL and this sounds like a natural progression.

The second half of this thing is just gosh darned, great, ain't it?

The closer feels like the best thing on here by miles.

was gonna say, this thing feels so utterly flaccid after caning syro so hard over the last couple of weeks... nothing as immediate as on the last two (amok, eraser). the last track registered nicely, however.

track 2 (piano) melody recalls the massive attack song (paradise circus) with hope sandoval.. the damage/skip is a nice effect.

this is an instant classic that us critics and music buffs will be talking about for years to come. it somehow balances that inhumane steriltiy of the early stuff with a more organic "lived in" vibe that seems very 2014

i'm predicting a solid eighter from the pitchfork boys and a possible bnm award. and why the hell not? we need more artists like this who are willing to push the boundaries of this lil' thing we call "music" - someone like tom yorke deserves more industry recognition. grammy? the coveted mercury prize? let's not speak too soon, but i have a funny feeling that ol' tommy will making space on his mantelpiece this christmas... and i'm not talking about greeting cards!

anyone know if anthony fantando has weighed in on this one yet?

― bryan danielson (missingNO)

is this nu_ILX humour, or old guard flare-ups?

I'm reading it in a Gregg Turkington voice, on cinema.

Just spent 20 on the phone to my bank due to suspicious activity on my account after buying this.

Did you go through PayPal?

No, a credit card payment. Got flagged by my bank because it was to BitTorrent.

Can't believe the negative reaction on this thread.

Ofc this isn't going to change everything (unlike the new u2 album lol) but it's an idea put into action that we might discuss outside of a thom-yorke-is-pretentious-context.

I guess the advantage to bittorrent as a technology of distribution is that its p2p-framework eliminates the need for large server capacity which is otherwise only offered by Spotify, Apple etc. If you want to release an album via bittorrent you can always seed it yourself, but if demand becomes massive instead of your server crashing there will simply be more seeders.

The argument that the system works better for already popular acts (which was also used against the pay-what-you-like model for In Rainbows) holds true wrt any other technology available, don't see why it's extra relevant here.

Anyway, the notion that bittorrent is a hax0r place is misguided: it's a system. So yeah it's popular with p2p communities, but it can be used for anything - just check the wiki list of

... wiki list of organizations using it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent#Adoption

this is ok. I like it less than the Eraser, maybe as much as AMOK. I snagged the wrong torrent (let's just say) and didn't have to pay anything (ha) which is the sort of thing you think he'd have thought of or investigated but you know. whatever. It's not a new method of releasing an album, as I said Marillion did it (with the not very good Happiness is the Road) about six years ago. Glad that RH are recording again and this just seems like kind of a precursor to that; but I think their app update thing is more interesting.

I can believe that people can't believe people would snark on thom Yorke working with BitTorrent inc, but its still pretty funny

Helps that people seem to think he just used the platform, as opposed to giving an album to the company after they asked him to

how dare you question his ART anthony, ART ART ART

If anything I question his sense of financial worth - DID BitTorrent Inc give him anything for promoting their latest attempt at a paygate, or just the privilege of firsties? Bono made damn sure everyone knew apple was paying them for promoting tech.

Some context for the evolution of the bundle:

http://evolver.fm/2013/05/07/bittorrent-launches-gated-bundles-for-paid-freemium-or-unlockable-content/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/26/bittorrent-paygated-bundle/?ncid=rss

The argument that the system works better for already popular acts (which was also used against the pay-what-you-like model for In Rainbows) holds true wrt any other technology available, don't see why it's extra relevant here.

at least bandcamp provides some possibilities for helping newer artists (people can search by genre, location, recommendations by users and artists, and it seems like they're doing some things with the front page & podcasts etc). with bittorrent, someone would have to find out about your record from some other source and then go specifically search for it, right?

i don't really have anything against Thom Yorke giving it a shot, but that's why it's not interesting to me as a new distribution option.

i think bittorrent is interesting as a distribution option because it doesn't have to be hosted by a corporation. bandcamp is cool for today but as soon as it gets successful enough it will be bought by some other corp that will inevitably ruin it. it's hard to think of a company that doesn't end up doing terrible things or being bought out by another corp that does terrible things.

with bittorrent, someone would have to find out about your record from some other source and then go specifically search for it, right? right. but it's easy for me to imagine a future scenario where some sort of musician-based organization (non-profit) serves as the hub for publicity and then simply provides links to the torrents. i dunno.

If only there was some form of journalism that could alert people to new music releases.

bandcamp is cool for today but as soon as it gets successful enough it will be bought by some other corp that will inevitably ruin it.

all it takes is the owners deciding not to cash out, right? extremely rare but it happens every now and then.

this is an instant classic that us critics and music buffs will be talking about for years to come. it somehow balances that inhumane steriltiy of the early stuff with a more organic "lived in" vibe that seems very 2014

i'm predicting a solid eighter from the pitchfork boys and a possible bnm award. and why the hell not? we need more artists like this who are willing to push the boundaries of this lil' thing we call "music" - someone like tom yorke deserves more industry recognition. grammy? the coveted mercury prize? let's not speak too soon, but i have a funny feeling that ol' tommy will making space on his mantelpiece this christmas... and i'm not talking about greeting cards!

anyone know if anthony fantando has weighed in on this one yet?

― bryan danielson (missingNO), Saturday, September 27, 2014 9:01 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A+, lol

Probably a mistake to put this on immediately after listening to Syro for the first time but this sounds... less essential than any other Yorke-related release I can think of. I can't imagine him putting this record together and thinking the world really needed to hear it.

BitTorrent Inc is promoting that over 400,000 downloads have occurred, but they won't say how many of those were paid without Yorke's permission. Which is kind of hilarious - we'll let you know we're successfully trading someone's work online, but won't say whether the artist is getting paid...out of respect for the artist.

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/thom-yorke-solo-album-tomorrows-modern-boxes-downloaded-400000-times-over-weekend-1201316230/

Album downloads had hit about 408,000 as of 10 a.m. Eastern on Monday, according to BitTorrent. It became available Friday at 11 a.m. ET.

Yorke’s release took advantage of the BitTorrent Bundle feature, and it is the first time users can pay to “unlock” content distributed via the peer-to-peer software. While BitTorrent recorded the total number of downloads, however, it is not disclosing how many of those users actually paid the $6 fee to unlock the eight tracks (with a rep explaining that this info belongs to the publisher of the bundle, and that Yorke is not releasing that).

it's a pedantic clarification but i don't think that's quite the contradiction you make it seem like; the potential grey area between 400000 torrent downloads & x number of paid torrent downloads wouldn't represent work traded, just disinterest, like however many people walked through the door of the record store but didn't buy a cd. maybe it isn't super useful data - here's how many people were theoretically curious to see how this would work but it doesn't seem too bizarre or disingenuous.

this thread really bummed me out, i think this is an interesting step toward sustainable self-sufficiency in ways that people are too quick to jump on, however many caveats there are to this specific demonstration of it. i heard some songs from the record online & they sound nice, too.

no, it represents work traded. it represents someone downloading the file, irrespective of whether they downloaded it through the paywall or a copy placed outside of it.

i think it's ironic that BitTorrent Inc, which profits from all downloads (via advertising, etc) paid or unpaid, is saying it's giving an artist power over the revelation of how many of the downloads of their work were through the paywall, when the artist has no power over whether the work stays behind the paywall.

i'm sorry if people discussing the "specifics" of this "demonstration" bum you out, but i'm not sure why it would.

like, sorry we don't just swallow a press release whole and think happy thoughts

sorry not everyone can grasp the difference between putting up an album on BitTorrent and putting up an album through BitTorrent Inc

sorry, i got confused. i guess bittorrent is saying 400,000 downloaded the free portion of the bundle, but won't say how many people paid for the rest of it. as for how many people used BitTorrent to download the bundle outside of the paywall (and there's been plenty of anecdotal evidence on this thread that the album is getting around), i guess that's outside of the 400,000. maybe?

still find it funny that bittorrent is promoting how many people are checking out the free video (if that's what it is) but not saying how many people are actually buying the album

fwiw ^this^ is why people discussing the "specifics" of this "demonstration" bummed me out

probably am using a harsher tone than necessary, but this isn't a case of an artist checking out the big open field of bittorrent and seeing how he can make it work for them. Plenty of folks have been doing that for a while. This is BitTorrent Inc - the tech company that is trying to move away its open source roots, the company that makes its money off of putting advertising and malware protection atop the illegal trading it facilitated - now telling artists they'll let them put a tipcup in there as well. Why am I supposed to shut my brain off and say "hey it's a step in the right direction?" just because the company shares a name with a platform that's interesting?

this has nothing to do with making things better for musical artists. it has to do with a piracy-fueled tech company trying to "go straight"

For a guy with a supposedly keen "bullshit detector", Yorke sure makes some appalling business decisions.

considering the chief content officer says he pitched the bundle to yorke in the studio I HAVE to assume money changed hands. In which case this really isn't that different from the U2 album, in that a musical act decided to let their album be used to promote tech as a hedge against poor sales. This isn't to say Yorke doesn't genuinely think this is a promising proposition for artists any more than bono doesn't actually think apple is neat.

i mean "maybe i can work with tech execs to make the world a better place for singers" wouldn't be the FIRST bad idea Thom shared with Bono

This has some of my favorite Yorke song titles at least...

Nose Grows
There Is No Ice (For My Drink)
Guess Again!

The Miracle (of Joey Fatone)

I think the only two songs I don't really like are There's No Ice and Pink Noise. The former feels to me like a distant cousing of Feral or Fast-track and I'm not a particular fan of neither, at least Feral has a nice groove, this just seems too last to long without going anywhere. Pink Noise is supposed to be just a transition track and feels useless on an 8 track album.

Great idea, really hope this model has some success. itunes is apple and spotify is just glorified stealing so we credit to Yorke for doing something.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/26/bittorrent-thom-yorke-major-labels-music

“Major labels have really given up on selling music, it seems. Pushing Spotify to an IPO is what most of the senior executives at the major labels are concerned with, which might be something to do with the fact that they own a piece of Spotify, and will participate in that IPO. But it doesn’t bear any relation to an artist trying to make a living from their work on the internet.”

while this is entirely OTM, it takes gigantic balls to say it when your company makes its money off illegal downloads, and is now telling artists they can put up a paypal account among the piracy, as long as BitTorrent Inc gets a cut. Like, WHY IS IT you have an audience of 170 million users? BECAUSE THEY CAN GET SHIT FOR FREE.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Picture-425.png

“Should we blame Apple for selling you a laptop? Why not attack the guy who invented streaming or HTTP? People misunderstand BitTorrent and think it’s something just for piracy,” he said.

“If you look at BitTorrent, the stuff you’ll be offered in BitTorrent and uTorrent, our clients... If you’re just using our websites and products, there’s literally no way to get any illegal material. That’s not what they’re designed for.

“They point you to – aggressively I might add – licensed, legal pieces of content. We’ve got over 2m licensed pieces of legal content – music, films, photography, books – in the BitTorrent system. And pay-gates is about helping publishers put more stuff on BitTorrent legally.”

I'd assumed this was some kind of anti-piracy measure but it appears to be as easy to steal as any other album.

Hey guys! Guys!

Listen this album is good I swear!

I really should stay out of this but I am bored:

"They got it into their heads ... they had to be first, because of who they are."

The feeling was mutual. "We really, really wanted them to be first, because of who they are."

I mean, look at the above quotes and contemplate on the levels of delusion that go into thinking like this for a sec.

kind of in disbelief that all the predictable news outlets are reporting

Today, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes has been downloaded over 1 million times. This number includes free downloads of the single and video for "A Brain in a Bottle" as well as paid downloads of the entire album.

Like, would you count streams of the "Anaconda" video as sales of the Pink Print?

Like if some VOD movie reported

Today, Nicolas Cage's KABOOM RUN RUN has been streamed 5 million times. This number includes streams of the trailer as well as paid streams of the entire movie.

rip and read, rip and read

so this has really grown on me.

yeah, i've been putting it on as i go home from work and have taken a liking to more of it

also we can all at least agree that thom yorke's solo music is at least 10000000 times better than phil selway's solo music. ugh, his is BAD

he's like the nephew that sang a cover at last year's thanksgiving and everyone politely clapped, and then the next year he came prepared with 3 of his own songs and an amp and everyone's just like fuuuuuuuuuck why did we encourage him

Heard "Nose" on a Dixon podcast (in a slightly remixed form, I think) and felt tempted to investigate after a long period of not feeling interested in Thom-y.

"I'd buy this if it was on CD," I thought. (Haven't read the whole thread but is this what everyone else has thought?)

Isn't Thom collaborating with Oxford University students on the distribution of his music?

First four tracks on this are really good.

I hated it when it first came out, but it has really quite grown on me. Ended up buying it as a Bandcamp thing.

This happened, though I didn't see anything in the media about it.

https://thomyorke.bandcamp.com/releases

(Unless this is a hoax. It probably is. A cursory listen of the first two songs...not good.)

by the cover image I would say it is a hoax

lmaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2861466346_16.jpg

He will be joining the Paris Philarmonie for a couple of nights, debuted some new songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpixMcZKgVs

More info

https://www.reddit.com/r/radiohead/comments/bajeeh/thom_yorke_minimalist_dream_house_megathread/

Better video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7PSmkj8J10

Seems he’s still in AMSP/SUSPIRIA mode

dope

:/ I kind of like it, but solo he doesn't have a lot of musical range.