[Moof_in_Charge]

You know, #1 doesn't mean anything to me. Pavarotti has had more #1 selling Albums than Radiohead, more awards and more praise and press release than many combined but yet somehow, in the world stage of "SELLING MUSIC" he didn't amount to a "Top Selling" Rock vocalist! What does that have to do with anything! he is a "Top-Selling" tenor. Top-selling doesn't mean anything by itself... Top selling what? Identify the category. Top selling Alternative, Top selling Rock? To generalize it like that is not so honest. And then what's the Top in Top selling? Which is my point.
4 top 1 singles doesn't really say anything if the rest of the Album is trash. My 2 cents don't shoot me.

[mainelymac]

Their music is also available at the new Amazon mp3 store.

[fribhey]

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For Radiohead, a top-selling act for about 15 years
No offense guys, but I am a top-selling act for the past 15 years too. Of course, you need to consider the top-selling to be the top 300 million US citizens.
There is no denying it, "Radiohead" has an established fan base, but come on, top-selling for the past 15 years is stretching it a bit ! ! !

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congratulations.... you just won the IDIOT post of the day award.
top-selling for the past 15 years is NOT a stretch. Kid A, which came out in 2000, DEBUTED at #1 on the US charts. that album also received a grammy for best alternative album in 2001.
their last album "hail to the thief" debut at #1 (which was their 4th debut at #1 in a row) in the UK and #3 in the US.
taken from wikipedia:
Radiohead discography
Pablo Honey - February 22, 1993 - #22 (UK) Platinum , #32 (U.S.) Platinum
The Bends - March 13, 1995 - #4 (UK) 3x Platinum , #88 (U.S.) Platinum
OK Computer - June 16, 1997 - #1 (UK) 3x Platinum , #22 (U.S.) 2x Platinum
Kid A - October 2, 2000 - #1 (UK) Platinum, #1 (U.S.) Platinum
Amnesiac - June 4, 2001 - #1 (UK), #2 (U.S.) Gold
Hail to the Thief - June 9, 2003 - #1 (UK) Platinum, #3 (U.S.) Gold
that's A LOT of gold and platinum i see there, that makes the TOP SELLING
radiohead is one the biggest bands in the WORLD. SPIN magazine named Ok Computer the BEST album of the past 20 years: http://news.bbc.co.u...ent/4110278.stm
just because you and your small town usa attitude knows nothing about them then i guess they aren't big.
go back to listening to your justin timberlake albums.

[fribhey]

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Now it may be that Radiohead only wants to sell complete albums only. This is their right, and Apple should provide a means by which an artist can select either individual song purchases or whole album only.

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I recall seeing some songs on iTunes marked as 'Album only'. I'm not sure if the label/artist can make an entire album's worth of songs 'Album only' though, but the facility is definitely there in iTunes to let it happen

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you are talking about "some songs" being labeled as album only. radiohead wants their entire album sold as album only, meaning every song.... not just some songs.
apple has said that it won't do that (eventhough someone mentioned that there is some obscure star trek cd that is only sold as album only)
it is radiohead's choice whether or not they want to just sell single songs or an entire album. the band beleives in entire albums and not single songs...... so it is not sold on itunes.

[DarrenForbes]

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You know, #1 doesn't mean anything to me. Pavarotti has had more #1 selling Albums than Radiohead, more awards and more praise and press release than many combined but yet somehow, in the world stage of "SELLING MUSIC" he didn't amount to a "Top Selling" Rock vocalist! What does that have to do with anything! he is a "Top-Selling" tenor. Top-selling doesn't mean anything by itself... Top selling what? Identify the category. Top selling Alternative, Top selling Rock? To generalize it like that is not so honest. And then what's the Top in Top selling? Which is my point.
4 top 1 singles doesn't really say anything if the rest of the Album is trash. My 2 cents don't shoot me.

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I think that the point of the 'top selling' was to show that this was a band with major commercial success trying a new approach to selling music. The phrase is about as non-judgemental as you can get. Radiohead are a fairly big band, they have sold millions of albums. It doesn't imply that Radiohead are any good let alone better than anybody else. It's news because its a fairly big band doing something that other fairly big bands haven't done before. That's all.
Let's not turn this into an argument about musical quality. The story is about a new approach and whether it can work. Can a label-less band still be a major success or do bands always need to rely on their labels to support and promote them? Is this they way forward for other musicians?
We're not allowed guns in the UK so you're safe.

[k88dad]

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
They sell CD singles.
Not selling on iTunes is crazy. Of course, selling it for whatever the buyer wants to pay is also crazy.
This is news. As far as I know, they are the biggest selling band to try this.

[mrbach]

Good for them. I don't buy the lower quality tunes available on iTunes, so why should they sell through them?
Mp3's are OK for the iPod, but I also listen to tunes on the car stereo and home stereo. Not nearly enough range in a compressed Mp3 to make it bearable to me.
The CD costs the same and you can rip your own Mp3's for the iPod (fair use), and rip a better quality one.
To me, iTunes has never seemed a good buy. Apparently Apple doesn't even make any money on it and use it to sell iPods.

[Rugby]

ah come on all, of course its all a publicity stunt... you get attention and media focus on you. Nice one, its going to be hard to buy CDs in the future though if you always have to buy songs on the "official website" /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[fribhey]

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ah come on all, of course its all a publicity stunt... you get attention and media focus on you. Nice one, its going to be hard to buy CDs in the future though if you always have to buy songs on the "official website" /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

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it may or may not be a publicity stunt..... but the fact is that they no longer have a record label. their record deal ended with their last album. and it's also fact that bands no longer need record labels leaching off of them.
radiohead now has COMPLETE control over how to sell their own music and they are doing just that.

[Moof_in_Charge]

congratulations.... you just won the IDIOT post of the day award.
I can certainly stoop to your level or you can simply rise to meet my challenge. I asked a question.. WHAT THE %&^% is the reference to "top Selling". People toss around "top Selling" and fail to describe what, where...
If you don't understand the question, do bother to ask me to clarify it instead of insulting me.

[fribhey]

Time magazine already has an article about it:
http://www.time.com/.../arts/article/0,8599,1666973,00.html

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when informed of the news on Sunday, several record executives admitted that, despite the rumors, they were stunned. "This feels like yet another death knell," emailed an A&R executive at a major European label. "If the best band in the world doesn't want a part of us, I'm not sure what's left for this business."

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Labels can still be influential and profitable by focusing on younger acts that need their muscle to get radio play and placement in record stores but only if the music itself remains a saleable commodity. "That's the interesting part of all this," says a producer who works primarily with American rap artists. "Radiohead is the best band in the world; if you can pay whatever you want for music by the best band in the world, why would you pay $13 dollars or $.99 cents for music by somebody less talented? Once you open that door and start giving music away legally, I'm not sure there's any going back."

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[fribhey]

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congratulations.... you just won the IDIOT post of the day award.
I can certainly stoop to your level or you can simply rise to meet my challenge. I asked a question.. WHAT THE %&^% is the reference to "top Selling". People toss around "top Selling" and fail to describe what, where...
If you don't understand the question, do bother to ask me to clarify it instead of insulting me.

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i understand the question clearly. i also have worked for a major record label and know what i am talking about. there are reasons why when records hit certain milestones they are labeled gold, platinum, etc = because they are top selling records. they don't label records if they aren't top selling.
what's not to understand about that? it's not confusing.

[Rugby]

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ah come on all, of course its all a publicity stunt... you get attention and media focus on you. Nice one, its going to be hard to buy CDs in the future though if you always have to buy songs on the "official website" /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

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it may or may not be a publicity stunt..... but the fact is that they no longer have a record label. their record deal ended with their last album. and it's also fact that bands no longer need record labels leaching off of them.
radiohead now has COMPLETE control over how to sell their own music and they are doing just that.

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well who knows maybe you are right, only time will tell though.

[Moof_in_Charge]

Let's not turn this into an argument about musical quality.
Far from it, I just wanted to know what top selling was. Who am I (or anyone for that fact) to question someone's taste in Music.
For instance, Cold Play has sold more records than Radiohead, The Cure has sold magnitudes more records, They're top selling too, (I guess) but compared to what?
To me the article was trying portray Radiohead as a trend setter which by itself is hilarious for a band billed as "the new Pink Floyd".
This is not meant to belittle Radiohead, it's a question on reporting style that seemed to use a bit of marketing. Am I sensitive to that? Yes.
Could have said "influential", "widely-followed", "loyal following" but instead we got "Top-selling" hmmmm okay, didn't realize that was the criteria for relevancy. that measure puts Britney Spears as far more relevant than Radiohead.
Anyway, "hail to the Chief" has sold about ~950k copies since 2003, to me at least that statistic negates "Top-selling during the past 15 years"... well maybe top-selling from whenever to 2003.... but whatever!
Anyway, good luck to Radiohead. this will be an interesting experiment indeed. Allowing fans to have a say in their music's pricing is great but I question the sentiment that the band is doing this to combat Piracy.... LOL