2011 is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit but don’t let this complete non-sequitur put you off. Musically, this year has seen an alarming trend of bands reforming for reunion gigs. Or putting things into perspective; one final payday so they don’t have to remortgage the houses and get day jobs in motorway service stations. Where they may, or may not, sell cuddly rabbits.

There has been no shortage of bands announcing their triumphant return to the musical arena. Only yesterday, brotherly duo Orbital released a list of UK dates, though to their credit they are releasing a new album, but hopes aren’t high after hearing new single “Never.” It’s free for reason.

One band however decided to buck the trend of 2011 and called it a day. Poor REM, after appearing on Sesame Street nobody took them seriously. It was almost like people bought their records because Kermit the Frog threatened to butcher Miss Piggy’s insides following their appearance [That's not the right show - Ed.]. Nobody was bothered by the news, but it’s emerged that the split has been on the cards. Just ask Thom Yorke.

Some people doubt the ability of Thom Yorke to see into the future, given his slightly wonky vision. Perhaps he’s finally developed a superpower after years of it remaining dormant and passed the time making frustrating records with Radiohead. That could all change now thanks to Yorke correctly foretelling the demise of one of the saddest and ill looking bands in the world, REM. Could Thom Yorke now give up Radiohead and become a fulltime mystic?

Possessing only the power of the mind, we guess Thom Yorke is the only one who knows the answer, but what’s to stop us from guessing?

Fortune Telling:

“Follow me around” could be the cry from Yorke as he wanders through the empty suburbs, looking for individuals to part with their possessions in return for sagely advice. Or, it’ll all go belly up when the villagers realise they’ve been scammed and they chase him with pitchforks, eschewing chants of “burn the wonky witch!”

Ghost Hunting:

Radiohead supposedly want to give up the ghost according to a track on their last album. Could Thom Yorke use his magic powers to communicate with dead people such as Colonel Sanders and ask what his secret recipe is? Could we see him ask Michael Jackson if, when all’s said and done, he really did ruin Macaulay Culkin’s career? Or will he turn his powers to evil?

Selling Lucky Heather:

Since Kid A, Radiohead have made a fortune from special edition album covers that come attached with a band members toenail clipping and eyelashes. With this art well covered, it could be very easy for Yorke to carve squirrels from blocks of wood, telling non-believers that the object will grant them all sorts of mystical powers. Or it’ll turn them into a paranoid android. Paranoid… andr… oh, forget it.

Whilst we’d love to believe that Thom Yorke butchered puppies and kittens to make a magic potion that allowed him clairvoyancy, it was actually something much more boring. During an interview, Yorke said that Michael Stipe of REM:

“Sent him a text message warning him of the band’s impending split.”

Before adding:

“I think it was kind of going one way for a while. I just wanted to check that Michael was alright.”

Well we can’t knock Thom Yorke for caring about Michael Stipe can we? That’s what friends are for. After all, they’ve known each other for years since touring on the live scene together. So it seems vaguely logical that the two would share chunks of gossip. OR DID HE SEE IT ALL IN HIS CRYSTAL BALL?!

No, probably not.

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Radiohead are without doubt, the kings of bringing out albums without giving anyone any prior notice, making fools giddy to lap up cod-experimental rubbish. If Thom Yorke farted in a cup, it’s guaranteed that fans would snap-up overpriced limited edition copies on ten inch hemp vinyl.

People dreaming of Yorke releasing solo material that sounds like The Bends and OK Computer might as well leave now.

Thom Yorke is acting like a baby again, digging his heels into the ground and trying to convince people that he can produce electronica that he’s heard on labels like Warp, Planet Mu and JBO. During a guest slot on the Mary Anne Hobbs show on XFM, he dropped a new track called“The Twist” as part of his “Money Back Mix.” And regrettably, you can hear it over the jump.

Over the course of Radiohead’s existence, lovers of the band have always defended the lyrics of Thom Yorke.

And because Radiohead fans bruise easier than peaches, a flash of anger erupts as they furiously argue about each and every one of their interpretations of meaning to Thom’s deep and spiritual lyrics, maaaaan.

Good in practice, but with so few decent lyrics, it’s impossible not to loathe these little gloop brained cretins.

With ‘The Twist’, it seems like Thom Yorke ripped up a dictionary, stuck the pages to a wall, threw a dart and ended up hitting a word, passing it off as a lyric. Experimental songwriting maybe, but the repetitive cut up use of “twist” doesn’t do wonders for the argument that electronic music is a few notes repeated for seven minutes with the occasional shift in pitch and melody.

It’s like the woeful ‘Fitter Happier’ all over again.

But hold everything! If you happen to be frothing at the mouth and about to accuse us of being anti-Radiohead, you should be aware that as the song morphs into something half decent around the 2.45 mark as warm sounding glitch and techno take over.

Alas, it’s not the work of Thom Yorke. Unfortunately for him, it’s a remix of a track by Modeselektor. A band that creates music that Yorke can only dream of making.

We’ve decided to showcase to you that songs with Twist in the title aren’t all awful. So with a bit of love and a nervous hug, we present to you via the wonders of Spotify, an hour long mixed bag of musical treats entitled:

Songs With Twist In The Title That Are Better Then What Thom Yorke Made

Who knows what musical style Thom Yorke will attempt next? Perhaps he’ll rub various parts of his body against a microphone and call in “Wonk Step.”

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Unlike Muse fans who all collectively whine and moan, you can place Radiohead fans in to a few different categories. The majority fall under this tag that know nothing but Creep from debut album Pablo Honey and also wonder why it rarely gets played. Your traditionalist Radiohead fan will refuse to listen to anything after OK Computer, due to the band seemingly shunning guitars for electronics.

This literally divides the third set of Radiohead fans who love concept of fusing two sounds together to make something new.

Of course, there will always be the hardcore fan who owns every album and EP, including the pricey Japanese editions with no extra content. Recently, the band released The King Of Limbs, their eighth album. Noticeably shorter than previous efforts, fans have been speculating over future content that may arrive.

They weren’t wrong; a two track 12” appeared on Record Store Day and as part of an exclusive BBC sessions, Thom Yorke and his troops have debuted an unreleased song that was presumably recorded during the sessions for The King Of Limbs.

There aren’t many decent live music shows on TV anymore. We once had Top Of The Pops which featured a mix of crap presenting, music videos and mimed live performances. MTV once had some credibility, but now its standards have lowered to he point that its primary output is vomiting morons on Jersey Shore.

Step forward the trusty old BBC to give music lovers a program which showcases musicians in an intimate setting without any annoying adverts or drivel like on Sky Arts. ‘From The Basement’ is a program for music anoraks to enjoy their favourite artist whilst ignorantly scorning those who don’t get the supposed high class values that the program is attempting to establish.

Radiohead haven’t performed a single live date since releasing The King Of Limbs. So this previously announced broadcast had already caused wide spread joy and wet dreams amongst fans. In an event which is rare for any mainstream act these days, the album would be played in its entirety – though we assume they’ll be some talking inbetween as all musicians like their own voice.

Interestingly, the upcoming performance hasn’t been teased by chopping together a few seconds of footage from various songs from the album and condensing in to a thirty second montage. Instead, Radiohead have decided to show us that they have plenty more songs locked away. Staircase is a new song from the band, even though Thom Yorke played a solo version of it last year in New York. Getting bored of our words yet? Watch the performance below:

Will a follow up to The King Of Limbs be in the works? All the signs are pointing in the right direction with fresh material coming through every other week. If anything does get released, we imagine it’ll be given a tedious name like The Prince Of Limbs or The Kings Of Making Limp music. By us. Probably.

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Radiohead are delightfully obtuse aren’t they? Those crazy guys gave an album away for very little money (good thing as it was of very little quality) and Thom Yorke has an eye so low down his skull that he can tickle his Adam’s Apple with his eyelashes.

And now, totally toying with our preconceived notions of what a band should do, maaaaan, they’re releasing a new album called ‘The King Of Limbs’ on February 19th.

That’s this Saturday! They didn’t let us know months in advance! Because they’re like that! That’s just sooooooo Radiohead isn’t it? ISN’T IT? You guys! If they were any more edgy, our heads might actually explode with kaleidoscopic tedium.

Radiohead announced the news on their website, pointing everyone in the direction of www.thekingoflimbs.com, where you’ll be able to order it. If you like eerily static music, sung by a maudlin voice backed by a band still indebted to Boards of Canada LPs.

Apparently, the band are referring to this new release (available as a download from Saturday, released physically on May 9th) as a ‘newspaper album’. That obviously means that ‘The King Of Limbs’ is perfect for holding a portion of greasy chips.

Oh, and track 3 has its tits out.

As ever, we can imagine that songs will be based around Thom Yorke’s insultingly obvious observations about the world, channelling a feeling of disenfranchisement after having watched Falling Down with Michael Douglas for the thousandth time. Filled with a feeling of sticking it to the man, Thom could have written a song in character, as a pre-packaged sandwich from Asda, filled with self-loathing and worry about those caught in the rat-race… a rat-race Thom Yorke hasn’t ever been part of… but he’s seen Falling Down, so that’s okay.

Yorke’s views on mankind are about as relevant as Roger Water’s, a man divorced from the public since the late ’60s, who is also a keen proponent of the whole ‘look what we’ve become’/'life in the machine’ nonsense. Both artists could benefit from something the world-at-large does with alarming frequency – having a good night-out with pals.

Of course, there’s little anyone knows of the new cut, but it’ll be a ‘high brow’ affair no doubt. Even the title is 6th form dense.

It’s named after an oak tree in Wiltshire’s Savernake Forest. The tree is a thousand years old and the phrase appears in the 23rd chapter of the Qu’ran.

We geddit. Trees. Religious text. Trees make paper. Paper makes books. Books have words in them. Words were invented by man. Radiohead are also men. They also use words. Words written on pulped wood. Like a tree. Trees are made of wood. The Qu’ran. Men. Mankind. Bits of wood. Wood with limbs. Like a wooden man. A wooden man with paper brains. A thousand year old man with a Radiohead t-shirt on. Made of the Qu’ran.  Invented by religious trees and given away as a free download. CDs pressed on Johnny Greenwood’s limbs…

[this continued for well over an hour]

Still, Muse will be thrilled at this news as they’ve needed something to crib notes from for their new tracks. So devoid of inspiration is Matt Bellamy is that he’s gone about impregnating a Hollywood actress, possibly in the hope that feeling fertile or the miracle of birth would give him some ideas. Alas, if he’d only waited a couple of months, he could have saved himself the bother of all those shitty nappies and just listened to ‘The King Of Limbs’.

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What do we have here? Starting this week, hecklerspray has decided to branch out for the usual trawl of new artists to cover music in a broader sense – past, present and future. This week, we’re looking back at an album that made a unique mark in the musical landscape. And out of the dusty racks this week is Radiohead’s Kid A.

Kid A has become a decade old and therefore, it seemed the most tedious of ways of being the first album to go under the microscope.

Released in October 2000, the fourth album by the Oxford five piece was expected to be another ‘OK Computer’ which broke the band in to the mainstream and in to superstardom. After all, once you’re tagged with having the best album of the nineties, surely there’s no pressure with the follow up?

Even from the artwork, it looked like that this album wasn’t going to be like anything the band had released before. Abstract images of mountains were held against a darkening sky where at times it literally looked it was bleeding in to the landscape. From album opener, Everything In Its Right Place, it almost seemed like Radiohead we’re setting their own fans a challenge of converting their own ears to something new and different.

Prior to Kid A the use of electronics had never happened. Radiohead were blessed with the ability to make emotive music with so called traditional instruments and experiment with string sections thanks to band member Johnny Greenwood.

So to hear cut up, processed vocals with added glitch, it was a shock to the system for many of the bands fans as they struggled to get to grips with this change of direction. After the success of OK Computer, Kid A was almost the anti follow up.

Three songs in particular stand out for confusing everybody who thought this was going to be a straight forward rock album. The eponymous track, Treefingers and Idioteque were songs that didn’t sound like Radiohead but, over time, developed a style for songs to be found on future releases.

Kid A sounds like the soundtrack to running through the woods at night where there is nobody around to help. The synths are perfectly matched with a heavily vocodered Thom Yorke vocal which at times makes it difficult to pick out any of the tracks sinister lyrics. “Heads on sticks” and “raining shadows” make it the perfect soundtrack to a horror film in your head.

Elsewhere, more experimentation was to be found with Treefingers, which was the first full instrumental track from the band to be found on an album. Skipped by many, this was judged to be the most difficult song to get used to. Perhaps it should have been left and worked on further, but its hints of post-rock sounded like something Godspeed You! Black Emperor would have launched in to, just with added spoken word rant.

Stand out track from the album and live favourite, Idioteque really was a key indication of Radiohead telling everyone to fuck off. They weren’t going to be held by the balls by a record company to make another OK Computer, okay?

Heavily influenced by acts such as Aphex Twin and Autechre, this pounding track could have dramatically backfired as they attempted so called “Intelligent Dance Music” (the most hideously title genre on Earth – Ed.) but it worked and crossed over in to clubland which opened up a new audience to the band.

We could go on longer as to why we love this album. Extras such as the hidden booklet underneath the albums CD tray was an added touch and the lack of promotion that still gained them a number one which was influenced by Naomi Klein’s No Logo book.

Kid A can only be seen as the most radical and challenging Radiohead album. But once some time is spent listening to the multiple styles, it can almost be regarded as one of their best releases.

Happy birthday Kid A – the sound of the weird boy in the class going through an awkward, but brilliant phase.

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The worst thing about Twilight was probably the music. No – Kristen Stewart. No – Robert Pattinson. No – everything.

But the music was pretty awful. Fake-angsty nonsense, all of it – from that Linkin Park song that sounds like the Self Harm preset on Fred Durst‘s old Casio to two songs by Paramore, presumably included so that people would remember Twilight as the movie with the really crappy soundtrack in case the rest of it turned out forgettable.

But the New Moon soundtrack is going to be different – Thom Yorke from Radiohead wants to appear it. We really wish we were joking.

In many ways, Radiohead and the Twilight saga have a lot in common. For instance, Radiohead have managed to channel a paranoid sense of modern alienation into seven increasingly boundary-pushing, era-defining albums, and Twilight is a rubbish film about a sparkly teenage vampire with a dickish haircut.

That didn’t really work, did it? OK, what about fanbases? There has to be some crossover there – Radiohead’s fans tend to be serious, educated men with beards in their late thirties, and Twilight‘s fans are all 14-year-old girls who, based on their contribution to the internet, are all illiterate and called XXXKARLYLOL!!! and have to be wired up to saline drips for 18 hours a day to combat the dehydrating effects of their constant unstoppable urination every time they get within 400 yards of a picture of Robert Pattinson.

There has to be some connection between Radiohead and Twilight, though. There has to be. Because why else would Thom Yorke from Radiohead voluntarily offer his music for the New Moon soundtrack? Because that’s what he’s done, as New Moon director Chris Weitz told Rottentomatoes:

“I am surprised at some of the bands that have said they’re interested. It’s kind of great. The criterion will still always be what’s right for the movie at that given moment, but Thom Yorke is interested; we might, if we’re very lucky, get Kings of Leon to do something… it’s exciting to be able to have access to this kind of talent.”

Now Kings Of Leon we can understand, because they’re the go-to band for any movie that wants – but couldn’t possibly afford – U2 on its soundtrack. But Thom Yorke? Really? What New Moon scene could Thom Yorke possibly soundtrack? The bit where Robert Pattinson grows a beard, ponders his dissatisfaction with contemporary social order and then reads some of Stupid White Men because it’s, you know, the truth and really profound and stuff?

However, this isn’t an entirely hopeless situation. If a Radiohead song does end up on the New Moon soundtrack, then at least it’ll fill up a space that would have otherwise been filled with Paramore. And Radiohead is bound to get a brand new audience after appearing on New Moon.

Admittedly that means that all future Radiohead concerts will be full of silently confused tweens who don’t appreciate the subtle influence of Krzysztof Penderecki on the band’s work. And that means that, to please its new audience, the next Radiohead album will be called Girls Make My Heart Go Plinkety Plonk.

But we’re totally cool with that if they are.

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10 - It’s St George’s Day! Let’s remind ourselves why that’s so important – YouTube

9 - Like soap operas? Like rocks? Then you’re going to love this – Rocksoapopera

8 – Ladies and gentlemen – Bohemian Rhapsody played on an old-fashioned printer! – Electricroulette

7 – Want to see something that’s like the new GI Joe film only obviously better? Then here you are – Electricspectre

6 - Never trust a one-eyed man who doesn’t want one of these – Geekologie

5 - Remember that weird homophobic beauty queen from a couple of days ago? Guess who her boyfriend is - PopEater

4 – Honestly couldn’t tell you what this is, but a reader said we should use it. It IS awfully funny – YouTube

3 – Haha, drunk people are DRUNK – Holytaco

2 - Five amazing things to do with water. Key word: amazing - Cracked

1 – If more marching bands were like this, maybe we’d like marching bands…

Ooh, can you feel the nerves building yet? The Mercury Music Prize takes place tonight – the nation’s foremost music prize where the judges will pick a winner based on how cool it’ll make them look rather than actual quality of music.

Yesterday, we looked at the first half of nominees, including the wonky-dancing Estelle and the brilliantly bonkers British Sea Power. With another six albums to pick from, we’re glad that the job hasn’t been given to us to pick a winner. We’d just get in a flap and end up throwing a dart at the various records. That is how the Pope is picked isn’t it? Anyways, here are the rest of the nominations for this year’s prize…

Neon Neon – Stainless Style – Featuring the producer Boom Bip and Gruff Rhys, who is one of the members of the Super Furry Animals. The music’s concept revolves around the playboy designer John DeLorean. Yes that’s right, as in the DeLorean car in the Back To The Future movies. Ace, eh?

Portico Quartet - Knee Deep In The North Sea – When people say jazz isn’t popular, you can at least say one album has some respect. Their raw sound has seen this fourpiece busk around their home city of London which can involve churches. What Jesus what make of this isn’t known. But we assume he’d crack out a saxophone and jam with them.

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset – The Bairns – Natives of Northumberland, they have created a subtle blend of folk which warms the cockles of most music reviewers. Despite many not knowing of them too much, there could be an outside chance of them winning if the bigger artists fail to capture the attention of the judges.

Radiohead – In Rainbows – Last year, Radiohead shat all over the music industry by letting fans buy their album at any price they felt. Once we got over that and listened, Thom and co returned with another album combining the weirdness of Kid A with their fortune finding album OK Computer. This year’s big entry who won’t win for this reason.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand – You know the guy from Led Zeppelin? Well it’s not quite a solo album, but he has departed from the rest of his OAP rockers. This is his side project whilst he debates whether or not to reform Led Zep. A country-sounding album with Alison Krauss caught many offguard, but the variation in style made shows he can hack different genres and make sure people know another country record apart from anything Johnny Cash released.

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement – Another year, another Arctic Monkey connection to the awards. It could have been an hour-long record with Alex Turner being recorded on the bog and it’d still get nominated. Based on his connections to Sheffield’s finest and Miles Kane – singer from The Rascals, fans literally lapped it up before listening. Not a straightforward listen, but instead a development in the writing ability of the two.

We mentioned yesterday that we think Burial will win the Mercury Music Prize. This hasn’t changed since yesterday, but tomorrow we’ll probably be writing to celebrate the success of someone else. Bah.

“Song review? Don’t you mean CD review, morons?”

For once we decided not to leave ourselves open for getting something wrong and remembered that you can’t physically get hold of this new tune from the UK’s worst drug-taking band, Keane.

Unless you’re one of those posh industry types, this song is unavailable to buy on CD, vinyl or even from one of those fancy digital downloading services. Though we assume it’s on file sharing sites alongside the mis-titled new Elvis and Frank Sinatra album.

Usually we don’t bother telling you how awesome or shoddy a single is, but seeing as it’s free release that didn’t get that much publicity compared to other free downloads, offered by the likes of Radiohead and Sigur Ros, we thought we’d make you aware. Spiralling is taken from Keane‘s yet to be released (but probably available illegally on the internet) third album Perfect Symmetry.

Gone are the earlier vocals of fatter-looking lead man Tom Chaplin, who previously sounded like a choir boy whose angelic vocals had crashed head on with him breaking into puberty. 2008 sees a different and experimental sounding vocal style – maybe it was the cocaine, we don’t know, but he seems to be taking on a bit more of an aggressive edge to his singing style. Gone is the quite timid whimper that was sometimes a bit awkward to listen to, but still delighted thousands of Radio 2 listeners.

When trying to work out the reason for this change, it may not be down to him snorting cocaine off the arsecrack of a model. Tom may have been given peppermint tea before the vocal take instead of mint tea. It would piss us off, that’s for sure.

Following strange lyrics from Feeder and their single We Are The People, Keane have managed to arrange the lyrics into questions for fans to answer. Hooray for interactive fun! Instead of the song breaking down and building back up again as per usual we are instead hit with a barrage of questions. Don’t worry, they won’t fry your brain – Chaplin asks if we want to:

“Be a winner, Be an icon, Be Famous, Be the President, Start a war, Have a family, Be in love.”

Because we’re nice, we’ll give you the answers:

“We already are – ask Alan Mcgee, only if it involves free things off PR people, only if we didn’t have to campaign for a year, no – because we struggle to even start a computer up sometimes, we are one happy family and yes – but not with the people from Keane.”

The lyrics are a bit too kooky for a band as commercial as Keane, and they would work better coming from some pissed off communist rapper who is integrating you through his lyrics and why you are a sucker to globalisation.

Not from a posh podgy boy and his mates whose idea of fun on a Friday night is ringing doorbells and running away whilst laughing like people who’ve just seen a pair of tits for the first time.

So what about the music? Well the two bods who no-one seem to know about are still performing. Richard Hughes still bangs the drums and Tim Rice-Oxley is still on the keyboard.

After two albums of just using the boring piano and not even altering the pitch Rice-Oxley has discovered the effects button and decided to jazz things up a bit. Sadly this new direction of incorporating diluted electronic sounds and vocal tweaks doesn’t work.

At best the song sounds like a shoddy remix using the successful song formula that Keane constantly used with songs such Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing. With so much free music software for bedroom producers to use, it really just sounds like someone has attempted to remix the older tracks and failed badly.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the daring leap of going hip and copying the dying trend of indie bands with synthesizers simply falls flat on its arse. As this is a free release, we can only hope that the real version suddenly appears and those crazy Keane boys have pulled an early April fool on us, or it’s never going to be anything more that poor.

Still, it’s only a free download. If you don’t like it, e-mail the song around as one of those crap joke chain messages. Title it as “best thing you’ll ever hear” before deleting the song off of your computer and freeing up the space it took up for porn or a better sounding track.

There are a lot available. Trust us.

It’s our lucky day – previously when we’ve watched fights between midgets and wonky-eyed wimps we’ve needed a credit card and a Bangkok hotel room with cable TV.

But not any more because Prince and Radiohead are at loggerheads – the kind of loggerheads that will either end in legal action or a hot hot dwarf-on-perpetual-student erotic gangbang.

It’s all over YouTube footage of Prince performing Radiohead’s Creep at a festival, you see. Prince being Prince, he’s had all videos removed from the internet; but Radiohead being Radiohead, they want the videos unblocked because they wrote the song. Who’ll win? It’s unclear, but it had better not end up with the gangbang scenario, because that’s going to result in one ugly unwanted baby.

The internet has really thrown some cats among the pigeons of the music industry, and it’s opened up a fairly deep schism. On one side are those who think that the internet is the perfect way to forge grass-roots support free of the machinations of record labels and multi-album distribution deals, and on the other side are those who think that the internet devalues music and that artists should always be compensated for their work.

Previously those two ideas had stayed far apart, but they came crashing together in April when Prince played a version of Radiohead’s Creep at the Coachella festival, a gathering that was otherwise exceptional only because a pig blew off.

What was the Prince version of Creep like? Well, if it was anything like his version of the Foo Fighters song he played in London last year, it was pretty sodding abominable. But the truth is we don’t know what it was like, because Prince has yanked all recordings of it from YouTube and other video sharing websites.

Prince has a hardline stance on the internet. Even though he was possibly the first major artist to use the internet for distribution of his music over a decade ago, he’s since taken against anyone who wants to use his music or image on the internet, even if it’s a video of a baby dancing to a barely audible version of Let’s Go Crazy, and had all unauthorised work removed for breach of copyright.

But now Radiohead claim that Creep‘s copyright belongs to Radiohead, and that the videos should go back online. CNN reports:

In a recent interview, Thom Yorke said he heard about Prince’s performance from a text message and thought it was “hilarious.” Yorke laughed when his bandmate, guitarist Ed O’Brien, said the blocking had prevented him from seeing Prince’s version of their song. “Really? He’s blocked it?” asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. “Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment.” Yorke added: “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.”

Of course Radiohead would say that. Radiohead love the internet, to the extent that they’re happy to give their music away for almost free on the internet. Radiohead love the internet and want to kiss it and have lots of sad-faced cyborgy children with it.

But we’re not even going to pretend that we know who’s got the legal upper hand here. However, it’s definitely good that there’s an argument, because it’s bound to cause two very brilliant things indeed:

1 - As a payback, Radiohead will record a special YouTube concert of nothing but Prince covers and refuse to remove the videos no matter what. This is good because as well as being a clever fan-pleasing reversal, it’ll also be funny to watch Thom Yorke – a man who tends to aim for ‘sexy’ and hit ‘six-year-old boy being ordered to kiss his grandmother goodbye’ – singing a song about a woman wanking herself off with a magazine, and

2 - Prince will stop playing interminable cover versions in the middle of his concerts and just do bloody Alphabet Street like everyone wants.

Or Prince and Radiohead will just keep squabbling until everyone thinks they’re all dicks. And that’s more likely, admittedly.

In the depths of the countryside, five men collectively known as Radiohead locked themselves away in a big empty house to make their new album In Rainbows.

People everywhere had high expectations for this one so savvy people like us could call it 'the return to OK Computer days' album. Finally in October, an announcement was made that a new album had been created with an immediate release a few days later. Not only would this mean that the traditional three month wait between news of a new album and release would be quashed, but the geeks on the internet wouldn’t have to brave the outside when the big day finally came. And on Monday everyone else got to buy it on CD. 

And, according to plan, In Rainbows has shot to number one.

When In Rainbows came out on the internet, fans had the choice to pay £40 for luxury artwork, vinyl and CD versions of the album and an exclusive CD of extra material. But not everyone is a mega-fan and the average person doesn't have that amount of money to spend on something that will sit on a shelf collecting dust and looking pretty. Unless you’re the sort of fan to make it in to some sort of Radiohead gangster chain and parade down the local indie disco. 

But since last Monday, people have been able to go to the shops and buy a physical, normal-priced copy of In Rainbows for themselves. And they did – enough of them for In Rainbows to knock Leona Lewis off the top of the album charts. Even though we could release a CD of a monkey belching the alphabet in the first week of January and it'd get to number one in the album charts, for the Leona thing we thank Radiohead a lot and offer them an open invite to come round to our gaff for endless cups of tea, coconut cake and those chocolate digestive biscuits with caramel in them. 

So it looks like Radiohead's 'pay what you like and then pay what we ask you to like everyone else' tactic has worked on all fronts. But who are the big losers in all of this? Old record label EMI upset lead singer/writer/depressed man Thom Yorke when it released a statement saying that the band wanted silly amounts of money for a new contract. A reply written like one of our many abusive comments was posted back by Yorke on the band's blog saying it was a load of porkie pies and they wanted to so something different or whatnot. 

The floodgates haven’t quite opened for more people to release music like Radiohead, but we expect the next industry-defining moment to be from Razorlight. Soon they will actually be posting a CD to everyone in the UK with a personalised apology for what they have done to our ears and a grovelling admission of guilt about how they’ll try to give us our time back for the amount lost listening to their bilge.  

Read more:

Radiohead CD Tops UK Album Chart - BBC

Thom Yorke is a happy soul – his hobbies include puppy-stroking and riding around meadows on a bicycle going "Wheeeee" – but EMI seems to have somehow done the impossible and made Thom Yorke a bit miserable.

Thom Yorke and EMI boss Guy Hands are in the middle of a war of words about why Radiohead left the record label. According to Hands, Radiohead wanted a £10 million advance for In Rainbows and control of their old albums, while Thom Yorke is claiming that the band just wanted to make sure their back catalogue was treated correctly. The emotional impact of this public bickering is thought to have already taken its toll on Thom Yorke, and has made him ditch plans for his forthcoming Europop collaboration with Same Difference from X Factor called A Very Merry Radiohead Party Fun Time.

As planet Earth's most sensitive wonky-eyed warbler, Thom Yorke feels things way more than you ever will. You know that time you were on a bus and the man sitting next to you coughed and didn't cover his mouth and you felt the cough-air touch your hand? You remember that you didn't think much of it afterwards? Well the same thing happened to Thom Yorke in the early nineties and he wrote The Bends about it. All of it. Ask him, it's true.

So just imagine the pain that Thom Yorke felt when Guy Hands, head of Radiohead's old record label EMI, spoke to newspapers about Radiohead leaving the company because they were being greedy and wanted £10 million to fit a stripper's pole, a foam machine and a constant supply of coked-out prostitutes in their studio, or something.

OK, that's not strictly true – Guy Hands said that Radiohead wanted a £3 million advance, a £3 million international marketing budget for In Rainbows, and the rights to a couple of old Radiohead albums that would have cost EMI £4 million in future earnings. And Hands says he couldn't commit to that deal, knowing that every penny that Radiohead got was a penny that KT Tunstall would miss, causing Radiohead to throw a tantrum and leave.

But Thom Yorke doesn't quite see it that way. Taking to the Radiohead website this week, Thom Yorke gave his side of the story:

we did not ask for a load of cash from our old record label EMI to re- sign. that is a L I E. The Times in the UK should check its facts before it prints such dirt. whAT we WANTED WAS some control over OUR WOrK and how it was used in the future by them-that seemed REASONAblE to us, as we cared about it a great deal. Mr Hands was not interested. So neither were we. We made the sign of the cross and walked away. Sadly. We are extremely upset that this crap is being spread about. To bedigging up such bullshit, or more politely airing yer dirty laundry in public, seems a very strange way for the head of an international record label to be proceeding. 

Obviously we're going to side with Thom Yorke here, for the simple reason that his crazy writing style makes us think that he's possibly left comments on hecklerspray before.

And anyway, what's all this fuss about in the first place? Radiohead leaving EMI has been the best thing for everyone – by releasing In Rainbows on the internet Radiohead became more relevant than they have in a decade, everyone got to buy In Rainbows for nothing and EMI has got more time to devote to Sheena Easton now. Everyone's a winner here. Especially Sheena Easton. And isn't that the main thing?

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F Y I_____ if you care – Radiohead 

Boxing day. A day of cold turkey, lingering family resentment and the fist-hard realisation that you didn't get a Nintendo Wii.

But don't worry. We're here. Well, actually we're not here at all. We wrote this weeks ago. Right now we're either laying on the balcony of an exclusive five-star hotel in the Seychelles or we're watching An American Tail on TV in bed with a bucket of Haribo and a hangover. Who knows where our lives will take us?

Anyway, as is now fast becoming traditional in the week between Christmas and the new year, we're going to fill the gap with the Spraylist, a personal insight into the stuff our senior writers liked best this year. And we're kicking off today with everyone's favourite albums…

Stuart Heritage

Sneaking through on a technicality – it came out in Cornelius' native Japan in 2006 – Sensuous couldn't be more beautiful if it advertised bras for Marks And Spencers. A genuine masterpiece of production, Sensuous manages to sound vital and meditative all at once, ambient and electronic but human too. True, I'd yammer on about how brilliant Cornelius was if he released an album of armpit farts, but Sensuous utterly justifies the hype. You deserve this album in your lives.

C J Davies

Ten of the fellows? In some sort of 'countdown' format? Sounds like a plan:

10. 'Because Of The Times' – Kings Of Leon
A few unwelcome guitar solos, but otherwise top-notch unpretentious fun. And 'Arizona' is one of the best things they've ever done.

9. 'We Can Create' – Maps
Drifty and ethereal niceness that should have won that Mercury thing.

8. 'Mirrored' – Battles
Math-rock pioneers assault your eardrums and will slowly – guaranteed – invade your humming glands.

7. 'Proof Of Youth' – The Go! Team
Pop distilled.

6. 'And Their Refinement Of The Decline' – Stars Of The Lid
Epic shimmering wonderment.

5. 'Strawberry Jam' – Animal Collective
The Baltimore basketcases come of age with a remarkable – and surprisingly accessible – selection of gems.

4. '23' – Blonde Redhead
The epitome of 'a grower.' Melodies that suddenly become so good around the third or fourth listen, you'll wonder how you did without them.

3. 'In Rainbows' – Radiohead
I once heard someone say this sounded like a 'Massive Attack album with Thom Yorke guesting.' Their problem being?

2. 'Kala' - M.I.A
Fucking awesome.

1. 'Neon Bible' – Arcade Fire
You know it's good. You own it.

Shawn Lindseth

The best album of 2008 without a shadow of a doubt is that old LP that fell off my neighbour's bookshelf and crammed deep in his neck. I'm fully aware this is sounds quite morbid, but that guy tried moving his fence eight inches into my yard. I mean my Step-Dad's yard.

Other than that, the best album based on musical merit would have to be Ween's La Cucaracha for two chief reasons. The first is the opening track, the second is the closing track. Two bookends surrounding genius.

Chris Laverty

I didn't buy a thing worth mentioning this year. I did quite like April March's cover of Chick Habit on Death Proof soundtrack. But I didn't buy it.

Matthew Laidlow

There have been quite a few bits and bobs this year that have gotten me all excited and giggly like a pregnant schoolgirl who’s just found out she’s getting a free council house. So I’m going to be annoying and list more than one. Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam is pushing experimental songwriting in my opinion, Radiohead’s In Rainbows is a welcome return to form after a few ropey recent efforts, and The Tuss who is really just Aphex Twin under a silly name is also back to form after his last 'proper' album. I could go on, but I’d be here all day. Well seeing as we’re here, Bogdan Raczynski’s Alright album is quite bouncy to.

Annette Hyde

LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver – I like this album because it’s a nice little mix that will get you through a workout where you want to strangle the old guy with halitosis on the treadmill next to you with his sweatband, and some more mellow stuff for when you want to slip into a trance after your latest blissful chance on with my mom’s egg nog pie.  Seriously, it’s the best thing ever… the pie, not the album. The album is good, but the pie… ohhhhhh, man.

Tomorrow – our best movies. But don't just sit there – list your favourite albums below. If you want. It's not like we're here. 

You know the score by now – hecklerspray presents a brief poetry-based diversion to brighten up your cripplingly dull Monday. Apart, of course, from those of you who now take this contest so seriously we're genuinely getting a little bit frightened.

This week we're asking you to scribble out lyrical odes to smilin' Thom Yorke and his pals in Radiohead. But – before we get onto that – let's take a look at last week's winner, shall we?

Last time around, we asked you to write haikus on the following topical celebrity story: that neurotic film-maker Woody Allen had been arguing so much with Spanish locals that he quit shooting his latest movie there. The winner was someone called sparkymike, whose effort ran thus:

Spain is reluctant
To forward its tax money
To wife adopters

Well done, sir.

Hold on – where are you going? There's plenty more fun to be had. Just because Mike was crowned the victor of last week's tussle, that doesn't mean you can't strive to be a champion right here and now. All you've got to do is come up with the best haiku on this tasty morsel:

Following the huge success of their 'In Rainbows' digital download, Radiohead are now closing the site in preparation for the CD/vinyl release.

Just remember the golden rule of haiku: five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. So an example – based on this week's story – would run like this:

Thom and the band

decide to stop giving out

music for 'nothing'

Think you can do better? We'd be frankly astonished if you couldn't. Entries in the comments box below, please… 

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Radiohead To Close Website Downloads – Musicrooms

We’ve all made the occasional balls-up. In some instances, it can be quite comical. You know, like that time when you accidentally gave you peanut allergy-suffering uncle a Reese's cup? How all the family laughed down in A&E as he had his stomach pumped so he could live a few more months! 

However, sometimes a mistake can be quite costly and leave multiple people in the shit. Look at Katie & Peter Unleashed. The commissioner must literally want to encase himself in cement as he has to witness two human pieces of plastic talking shit for an hour week after week. So we must spare a thought for the not-so working class Lily Allen who tried to come over all clever and intelligent when she tried to have a pop at Radiohead. She must be trying to practise slagging off other people for her new rubbish chat show. 

Lily Allen and Radiohead couldn’t be more apart. One of them is multi-million selling band that's been around for over a decade, and one is an oddly-nippled chav who wants to come over as a commoner but fails badly due to her privileged posh background. 

In October, Radiohead put the shits up the music industry when they offered their fans the chance to pay whatever they wanted for their new album. Millions supposedly flocked to do this and ten days later, In Rainbows was available to download, ranging in price from user to user. By doing this, they were the first band to ever sell their album with no fixed costs, potentially scaring record companies and CD shops out of jobs.

While fans and independent record labels praised Radiohead for sticking two fingers up at the industry, some people weren’t happy. Of course, it had to be cockney loudmouth Lily Allen. She said of In Rainbows that: 

"It's arrogant for them to give their music away for free – they've got millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who haven't done as well."

Yes, because instead of record labels taking a slice of cash your work, the money will go straight to the people who deserve it the most. The actual band. Obviously, having millions of pounds is probably why Radiohead aren't fussed about making anything of this new record. It was an experiment to see how much people would pay for an album, nothing more. Forget the set cost that HMV charges, it’s all down to what the user wants.

Reportedly a lot of people didn’t pay anything for this album. But with a hardcopy due for release on New Year’s Day, could many people just be using this as a taster? Exactly what many do on P2P networks anyway before buying it? We don’t know, but if they get to number one, we guess Thom Yorke and co will be sniggering away like schoolgirls who’ve just won first place in a cake-baking contest. 

And for some more Lily Allen comedy gold, she added this strange comparison: 

"You don't choose how to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?" 

Erm, we believe it’s because most farmers don’t tour the world raking in millions of pounds from gigs demonstrations about how good their eggs are. And because most bands aren't being killed because they've got bird flu. Although if anyone from DEFRA is reading, we did see Razorlight looking a bit peaky next to a turkey shed the other day…