Finally, I get to write about Radiohead on this blog. While I'm not a huge fan of the band, they are somewhat responsible for my obsession with seeking out free music wherever I can. In 2007, they made huge headlines when they released their album In Rainbows as a digital download for whatever price people wanted to pay for it, including nothing at all. I initially felt a little guilty about paying $0 for an album, but the fact was that I was really not very familiar with Radiohead - I knew a few of their singles and that was about it. I ended up really enjoying the album, and soon after that I checked a number of their albums out from my local library and ended up buying a copy of Kid A, which absolutely floored me when I first heard it. A few months later when I started this blog, In Rainbows was one of the first things I wanted to write about, but I discovered that the free digital download was no longer available; at the same time, I learned that, unless something has already been available for years, it's often better to write about it sooner rather than later.
The subject of this post is Radiohead's new song, "These Are My Twisted Words" , which was officially released yesterday. It can be downloaded free of charge from the band's w.a.s.t.e. online store; it can also be downloaded as a torrent from Mininova, where the band themselves leaked the track last week. Downloading from w.a.s.t.e. gets you a 13.5 MB .zip file that contains the song itself (as a high quality 320 kbps MP3), an image file with artwork, and a PDF file with silhouetted images of trees that are meant to be printed out on tracing paper and then put together "in an order that pleases you". The torrent does not contain the latter two files, although it does contain a text file with a rather cool looking ASCII version of the artwork; if artwork is the sort of thing that matters to you (and as someone who used to sit and listen to CDs while thumbing through the booklets, reading the lyrics and analyzing the artwork, I understand completely), you may want to check out both versions for completeness.
The song itself is a rather interesting one. The vocals don't start until about halfway through the five-and-a-half minute song, and once they do kick in there do not seem to be any discernible verses or choruses. Aside from the persistent, driving drum beat, the whole thing sounds very atmospheric and dreamy. I'm sure that bigger Radiohead fans could write a lot more about it, but I do have to say that I really like it, and I'm looking forward to hearing what they come out with next. Check it out for yourself, and happy listening!
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