New Radiohead album In Rainbows Available October 10! At your own price. No, Seriously.

Leave it to Radiohead to finally and completely give the biggest middle finger ever to the record industry.

After being mum and cryptic (okay, well, that's not new) about new music and a new album -- I had lost hope for this year -- this weekend if one clicked over to Radiohead.com, the site immediately redirects you to the following URL: http://www.inrainbows.com/Store/Quickindex.html, which has a pretty multicolored effect.

The next page has the following message:

Radiohead have made a record. So far, it is only available from this website. You can pre-order it in these formats: Discbox and Download.

OMG!

Yes, it's true -- In Rainbows, a new Radiohead record, is coming out in ten days. Record label what?

But wait! IT GETS BETTER.

The next page contains links to purchase a Discbox -- which states it will be shipped on or before December 3, 2007; for 40 pounds, it's the vinyl version AND a CD AND a digital download -- or a digital download (details sent by email, only no downloading before October 10, none of the extra content on the discbox).

BUT WAIT! IT GETS BETTER!

If you decide to just order the digital download, you name your price, what you want to pay for the album. Seriously. You decide what to pay. Click on a question mark, and it says "It's up to you." Click on it again and it says, "No, really, it's up to you." You can pay nothing. You can pay a lot of money. It's your choice.

Hear that? That was my head just exploding with thoughts of commodity and the worth of music and how you can or cannot put a price on music, and philosophy and psychology of consumer choice. Etc. Etc. And the fact that Radiohead is fucking releasing its new album on a web site, with ten days' notice.

I pre-ordered the download. Decided to pay 7 pounds, or roughly $14. Because I have Catholic guilt and, like, worry that if i don't give any money I won't get the CD or something.

God, I love Radiohead.

**EDIT, Monday 10/1 at Noon** So, either the Web site is overloaded or there's some shenanigans going on, because it doesn't look like you can order something right now from radiohead.com or inrainbows.com. Tricky buggers. Also, Tinymixtapes says this about the album.

-- Annie Zaleski