New Radiohead Album
It's a 'Newspaper Album'. Huh?
Radiohead are releasing a new album! Inexplicably, they have dispensed with months of pre-album hype and are releasing it this Saturday via their website. Subsequently, we are set adrift on a sea of rumor and speculation that, while extremely entertaining, isn't very helpful. Thus, we have decided to condense what we know about the new Radiohead album into some easily digestible bullet points that you can regurgitate to your hip friends so as to appear, as they say in cultural circles, 'in the know'.
? The new album is called The King of Limbs. Wikipedia teaches us that it is "possibly" named after a tree! Upon closer inspection of said tree, one hopes that the new Radiohead album captures something of the majesty of its namesake. Behold!
THE KING OF LIMBS OAK, SAVERNAKE FOREST
One also hopes that The King of Limbs (the album, not the tree) holds as much longevity as said natural marvel. Will we still be listening to The King of Limbs in 1000 years? I doubt it, but we won't know until Saturday, will we?
This time, in direct contrast to the 'pay what you like' mentality of 2007's In Rainbows, nothing comes for free. "Why" you may ask, "when Thom Yorke is a veritable tycoon and I am a pauper with naught but ten cents and a packet of chewing gum to my name?" Because, according to bassist Colin Greenwood, Radiohead are releasing The King of Limbs "in a digital landscape that has changed again." The King of Limbs will instead be available for purchase as both a digital download and physical entity for less than the price of a car, but more than the price of your average sandwich. Win some, lose some.
The album's website claims that The King of Limbs is "the world's first Newspaper Album." It then covers itself from any possible lawsuit from disgruntled creators of previous Newspaper Albums by adding "perhaps". This would all be well and good if anyone had any clue as to what a Newspaper Album actually was. We DO know that it includes the new album in three (three!) formats, various artworks and inclusive shipping. In the immortal words of The Who, "I call it a bargain, the best I ever had!"
Here is the video for the first single, 'Lotus Flower'.
Lillian McKnight
