At times it has certainly seemed that Radiohead was trying to destroy their own career just to see if they’d survive. Those times generally occur just prior to the release of a new album.

In Rainbows is Radiohead’s 7th studio album.

From Wikipedia:

While the discbox, which includes the MP3 download, is priced at £40 [approximately $82 USD], the price of download by itself is left up to the buyer. Upon purchase, the buyer is prompted to type their desired price, plus a credit card transaction fee of 45 pence [about $0.91 USD] if purchased for more than £0.00. For free purchases, no credit card is necessary and no additional fee is charged.

This seems like a project that an MBA intern came up with while working for Radiohead this summer. When a band goes Platinum or Gold for 10 years straight, you’ll certainly be collecting a lot of data when they go to order the new album. I’d certainly rather have that data in the hands of the band than in their record companies. Although the numbers will have to be released to the public if any thumbing of noses is to occur.

And also, I wonder how much the discbox is subsidizing the free downloads that will be given away?