Thom Yorke is known to surprise as much as he is known for pushing the boundaries of what a song can be. On Friday, September 26th he did the unexpected, he dropped the Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes album! This is monster! And for Radiohead fans, diehard and casual alike, the joy is evident and immediate. And it isn’t just the 8-track release that is pure joie de vivre. It is the method of madness that is groundbreaking! Mr. Yorke has chosen to disseminate the album to the masses through “the front door” in a way that is pretty innovative and totes badass too. Read on.
As an experiment Thom Yorke and company are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute the Tomorrow’s Modern Box record. The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files. Stay with me because this is as uncomplicated as it is beautiful and brilliant. The files can be anything, but in this case it is an ‘album’. The Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes album to be exact.
FYI: The track and video, “A Brain In A Bottle,” is frenetic badassery unparallelled. Just sayin’.
It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its collective head around, as in “if we build it will they come?” No surprise, they are coming in droves, me included.
If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to the very people who are creating the work. As with Radiohead’s In Rainbows (2007) release with the ‘name your own price’ option this to is an instant “game changer” of monumental proportions. No lie.
Artist: Thom Yorke
Album: Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes
Buy Deluxe Vinyl Release
Tracklisting:
SIDE A
a brain in a bottle
guess again!
interference
the mother lode
SIDE B
truth ray
there is no ice (for my drink)
pink section
nose grows some
So, you may ask, “What is the point?” Well, it is quite simple. The philosophy behind the technology is to place the power and control in the hands of the creative force(s) behind the art. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Boom! There is is.
Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers. There isn’t a middleman, middlewoman nor a middle middling anything. Just the artist and those willing to purchase their beautiful art.
If it works anyone can do this exactly as Mr. Yorke has done. Because the torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey. It’s a self-contained embeddable shop front. Period. How cool beans is that? Very.
The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network.
Get the BitTorrent app. Then get Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes. NOTE: The BitTorrent Bundle app is not currently compatible with Amazon’s Kindle Fire line of products.