As pop music continues to bend into new shapes, so do the shipping containers.
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was busy torquing the architecture of both on Friday when he suddenly released his second solo album, “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes,” through BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer software system previously synonymous with piracy.
Aye, this new album would be shared across networks, but to download it, listeners would have to cough up $6 at a “pay-gate.” In addition to eliminating phalanxes of middlemen, using BitTorrent alleviates server costs, reportedly allowing Yorke to pass the savings on to his fans while making a little more dough for himself.
It’s his latest distribution experiment after Radiohead infamously introduced the pay-what-you-want-even-if-it’s-zero-dollars sales model in 2007 with the release of the band’s seventh album, “In Rainbows.” Ultimately, Yorke is still interested in musicians taking control over the dissemination of their work, which is a cool and noble thing. But so far, his methods only seem useful to artists who’ve already built massive followings through the major label system they’re now trying to circumvent.
Nor is this new distribution method foolproof. I paid my $6 on Friday afternoon, but had to call IT to actually get the files onto my company-owned laptop. It ended up being a no-go. I was told that using BitTorrent could compromise the integrity of our company network, so a friend e-mailed me a pirated zip file containing the songs and that was that.
All of this comes just two weeks after Apple teamed up with U2 to smuggle a copy of the band’s new album into the pocket of every iTunes user on the planet. They pompously dubbed it the largest album release in history. It felt like the dawn of non-consensual music distribution.
And while they probably couldn’t sound more different, U2’s “Songs of Innocence” and Yorke’s “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” share an unfortunate weakness: the music therein wasn’t as bold as the rollout. Add Jay Z’s bland, Samsung-sponsored 2013 album “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail” to the mix, and it’s enough to make you wonder how much creative energy gets depleted while dreaming up these new delivery systems.
Which isn’t to say that “Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes” isn’t a handsome recording. Yorke continues to follow his nose toward avant garde electronic music, using his weary falsetto to steer drum machine chatter toward popland. At his best — during “A Brain In a Bottle” and “Guess Again!” — he dilutes anthemic melodies into pitter-patting electronic lullabies.
Overall, everything feels lighter. Those dour, apocalyptic jitters that define so much of Yorke’s work seem to have evaporated a little. The sky is no longer falling. Or maybe it’s already fallen. What’s left is a handsome little flower-bud of an album — not remarkable, but still pretty, and as ever, an invitation to mull the meaning of life.
Take a whiff or keep moving. You have a choice.
