Throughout their 16-year, seven album career, Radiohead has been pushing back musical boundaries. With a string of seminal albums, hailed by fans and critics alike as being among the very best in contemporary rock music, they have managed, as is requisite to all truly great bands, to rebias and rewire the prevailing aural landscape of their time. The music they have birthed is a composite of two competing chromosomes of edginess and maturity that appeal to the punked-out teenager and savvy sophisticate alike.

RADIOHEAD 5.jpg            On their latest string of efforts, they have proven – perhaps better than any other artist who’s tried – that the automated blips and spurts of the modern digital loop age can be not only musical, but strangely emotional and human.

            Conspicuous front man, Thom Yorke, has said that, if forced to choose between writing music solely on guitar or solely on a computer, he’d choose the latter.

            The band’s mind-amping brand of abstract electronic art rock is the result of a conscious effort to branch out beyond the limits of guitars and drums. Their live performances see members shifting to and from modern digital and traditional analog instruments.

            Radiohead is constantly showing up on “Best” lists. Three of their albums made Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list in 2003: The Bends (#110) OK Computer (#162), and Kid A (#428). Two made Time Magazine’s 100 All-Time Albums (OK Computer and Kid A). In 2005, they were ranked #73 on Rolling Stone’s list of the greatest artists in history.

 RADIOHEAD 6.jpg           Faced with the dilemma of releasing another studio album on CD in the age of internet piracy only to see their efforts go largely unrewarded, Radiohead chose to bypass the usual promotion, distribution, and manufacturing avenues of record companies and join the millions of independent online artists who already give their music away for voluntary donations. Their latest album In Rainbows was initially released in a download only format on their website for as much as the listener was willing to pay. But back in December, after an estimated 62% of listeners took the music without paying a cent, the band reneged on the idea – pulling the plug on the download site and releasing the album on traditional formats. But with plummeting CD sales and company stocks, the writing seems to be on the wall for the corporate record labels… and maybe for popular music as we know it. Many have observed that the live show is becoming the surest way for an act to make money.

            Their North American tour in support of In Rainbows sees Radiohead in St. Louis (May 14th at Verison Wireless Amphitheatre) and Indy sometime in August (yet to be announced). Tickets are going fast for the St. Louis show, but as of this writing are still available at www.livenation.com. Tickets will probably go fast for Indy as well, so keep on top of it. Missing a chance to see one of the greatest rock bands of our time when they come within driving distance = a bad idea.