On Monday of last week (the 14th) Radiohead announced on their website that they were issuing their 8th full length album called The King Of Limbs and, oh by the way, you can get it this Saturday (the 19th). The immediate nature of the announcement wasn’t far off from what they did for their previous album, In Rainbows, wherein they announced the album and released it ten days later. As we know now the band moved up the release day for Limbs by one day and set the album free on Friday the 18th.

Radiohead are a band that have the financial security and fanbase that grants them the freedom to do whatever they please with their music, putting them in a somewhat unique position. I take a look at what they’ve done and wonder why more bands of any stature haven’t embraced a different way of thinking.

In 2003 Hail To The Thief, Radiohead’s sixth album, completed their contract obligation to EMI. Soon after they stated that they weren’t sure how they were going to handle future releases. In a since-removed post on their site Yorke commented on their relationship with EMI at the time of the album’s release:

“What we would like is the old EMI back again, the nice genteel arms manufacturers who treated music a nice side project [and] weren’t [too] bothered about the shareholders.” In 2007 commented in Time, “I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say ‘Fuck you’ to this decaying business model.”

Indulge in their “perverse pleasure” they did when they released In Rainbows in October of 2007. With the utmost nonchalance guitarist Johnny Greenwood announced on their blog: “Hello everyone. Well, the new album is finished, and it’s coming out in 10 days. We’ve called it In Rainbows. Love from us all.” And just like that Radiohead changed the game.

Quickly fans learned the real surprise: they were releasing the album themselves, digital-download only (a physical copy ended up coming out later) and when you checked-out you could pay what you want (plus a 45 pence fee for processing). Want to pay $0.01? What about $25? You could do both with equal ease. The band employed an independent private network internet provider to handle the traffic and then staggered the release so that the servers weren’t slammed all at once. Two months from release day the official digital download was made unavailable and perhaps the greatest album release experiment in the history of the music industry was finished.

This daring idea sent a strong message to both independent artists and an industry struggling to cope with the rapid rise of digital services like Apple’s iTunes Store. A month after the release of In Rainbows the spoken-word hip-hop artist Saul Williams released his album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! via his website for free or for a donation of at least $5. Other artists, varying from hugely popular acts like Nine Inch Nails to independent comedians few have heard of, started to release albums in this manner. Whether the customer chose to pay nothing or $10 per album the artists’ work was getting into more hands and they were receiving a significantly larger cut of the profits.

When it came time for Radiohead to release The King Of Limbs they took a similar approach to announcing the album. An image posted on their site linked to thekingoflimbs.com which simultaneously announced the album and let people preorder either the digital version (in DRM-free mp3 for $9 and WAV for $14) or what they’re calling a “newspaper album” that includes the album on two 10” pieces of vinyl, over 600 pieces of tiny art and other items (including the digital download) for $48 and $53, depending on which digital format you desired.

Though there has been no word on why they abandoned the pay-what-you-want idea they essentially created what strikes me more is the immediate nature of “announce/release”. When a band announces that they have an album coming out a few months from whenever you know that the album is done and it is inevitably going to leak.

The nature of how common “leaks” have become for music releases was almost the entire inspiration for Radiohead’s decision to release the album almost simultaneously with the announcement. I believe that they end up creating more hype because of how they’re doing things, mostly because it’s so different from what almost everyone else is still doing three and a half years later.

Take a band like Fleet Foxes, who get their start in the most independent of ways (word of mouth via MySpace). They have fallen in line with traditional record company patterns. Recently they announced their new album for a May release and have come straight out to say that the album is finished and has been finished for a while. What’s the wait? When they made their announcement word quickly spread through Twitter and the various music blogs but don’t you think there would have been a bigger sense of excitement had they pulled a “Radiohead” and released it shortly after the announcement?

While many independent artists have taken a cue from Radiohead to start thinking a bit outside the box or just straight mimicking them there are still countless numbers of high profile artists who find themselves in the same situation where Radiohead embraced their freedom to take a chance at doing things differently.

Maybe complacency keeps those artists attached to what they know. Maybe they don’t understand the technology that could grant them complete freedom. Maybe they’re just scared. Whatever the case is, I hope they find a place in the world Radiohead is trying to create for them and the whole industry. Or better yet, I hope they have the courage to stand by their side as its created.