Chris Salmon: Is Radiohead's new 'social networking' site anything more than a cash grab?
Final stage week, Radiohead became the latest big act to launch their have sociable network (waste-central.com). The site offers the standard MySpace/Facebook features - profiles, friends, blogs etc - addition scoop content from the band. Such online communities ar purportedly popular with artists because fans ar to a greater extent belike to spend time in that respect, and so - the theory goes - cash. So, according to a holocene Billboard article (tinyurl.com/5j42dl), 25% of the users of Kylie's mixer network, KylieKonnect.com, have purchased a ringtone, download or merchandise.
Such stats whitethorn appeal to Radiohead, wHO showed their willingness to embracing fresh moneymaking opportunities by launching a remix competition for their latest unity, Nude person, then charging fans 79p to download apiece of the song's five parts from iTunes. Fundamentally, that's £4 to accede the sort of competition several other artists have offered for free.So over again, Radiohead may have got created their sociable web in response to the fact that their near dedicated fans distinctly deliver time on their men. That much is proved by the "Tenspiracy". Google the full term and you'll find oneself hundreds of postings concerning a terrifically fantastical theory around the band's In Rainbows album and its association with the number 10. As indie daybook Puddlegum.network was get-go to notice (tinyurl.com/342utd), the 2007 album was released on the 10th day of the 10th calendar month, contains 10 tracks and has 10 letters in its claim. It was likewise preceded by 10 cryptic messages on the band's site (heavily featuring the letter of the alphabet X), and was made available from 10 servers, 10 days after it was announced. Precondition that the working title of respect for Radiohead's OK Computing machine album was Zeros and Ones, it has been decided that the banding are communication a binary message. Indeed, Puddlegum declared the 2 albums were designed to be played together; take heed to the full binary program tracklisting via cyclosis site Imeem at tinyurl.com/4xejtu. It proves little, but it should have got you tapping your 10 toes.The saami can be said for the short films that Huntingdon's finest nu-soul mavin, Jamie Lidell, has been mailing on YouTube to preview his third gear record album, Jim. 2 instalments suffer appeared at youtube.com/jamielidell; they feature the pleasingly eccentric vocalizer singing us well-nigh his freshly songs and miming to chunks of them. From the sound of it, the Warp-signed isaac M. Singer has smoothed the esoteric edges of 2005's excellent Manifold with big dollops of temperateness funk. Fans of vintage Stevie Wonderment may intimately sanction.
