I don't think that I've heard a Surfer Blood song, outside of their myspace page based on Dale's recommendation.

Good point.

They nearly collapsed under the success of Creep, no other singles were really a hit off of Pablo Honey, and although The Bends proved to yield some financially viable singles, that album was a really slow grower in terms of public acceptance.

Paranoid Android was hugely successful because of its video as well.

MTV played a huge part in their success, and while cool videos can, and are, being made right now in the youtube age for cheap or free, I have to question whether they would have survived the first few years, let alone the 90s, without the help of the major label machine.

There is, and always will be, a need for major labels. Now more than ever, perhaps.

All indie means is the band has enough of their own money to get a head start on their own terms, which really limits it to people from a middle class background, or higher in the socio-economic chain. I don't even need to begin to tell you how limiting that is to the music itself.

A friend of mine's band just landed a gazillion-date U.S. support tour with a pretty big headlining band, not to mention stops at coachella and all the big summer festivals. There is NO WAY IN HELL they could do that without label support. They aren't from a well-off background, and they worked their asses off to get there.

So fuck Thom Yorke, and fuck the whole concept of "indie". Their heads are so far up their own asses, they can't comprehend how the world works outside their pathetic little bubble.

"It's only a matter of months since the music business folds"?

What does that even mean?

That's like saying...it's only a matter of months before the construction industry folds...

So stupid I don't even know where to begin.

I could pick a few things to get worked up about.
This isn't one of them.
If you have some sort of celebrity and you make belligerent statements,
people with too much time on their hands are going to pay attention and get all affected by this cheap advertising.

Since the statements are inherently inflammatory,
Chumps who take themselves too seriously tend to get sand in their vaginal vault and make statements just as brash.
Rabblers keep on rabblin.

Yeah, but if a mate told me that over a beer at the pub I'd tell them they were a fucking idiot, too...

...and then that insightful "friend" would simply chuckle and assume this was just part of your blowhard tendencies.

Insightful?

So you agree with Mr Yorke that the "music business" will fold in months?

While I wouldn't say i'm a fan of Radiohead, I definitely listen to some of their music, but Thom Yorke is -- as a person -- pretentiously insufferable. He talks just to make noise.

I could pick a few things to get worked up about.
This isn't one of them.
If you have some sort of celebrity and you make belligerent statements,
people with too much time on their hands are going to pay attention and get all affected by this cheap advertising.

Since the statements are inherently inflammatory,
Chumps who take themselves too seriously tend to get sand in their vaginal vault and make statements just as brash.
Rabblers keep on rabblin.


edit: I can tell by the prominent 'Members Browsing' shit, I'm totally in for a hellstorm of mind-flaying turd bombs. Lay some knowledge on me Mr. Music.

Good to see you know how to work copy and paste on a computer...

some people know what time it is,
some people don't.

I don't care one way or another what he thinks, but people in the public eye have a certain responsibility to speak intelligently, or risk looking stupid. When someone like him, with a podium from which he can be heard, makes an entirely baseless, flat-out stupid claim like the aforementioned, he sounds like a fucking idiot. Simple. It's not unreasonable for me to judge it so.

To reiterate what's been said, the reason why people are up in arms about his opinion is because he constantly whinges and whinges and whinges about big corporate money, when it is that very money that's given him is car, his house, his lifestyle, and his podium from which he endlessly whinges.

i don't care what people think.
...just questioning reactions to shit that'll never matter.

When one of the biggest rock stars in the world offers his take on the state of the very industry he works in, it does kinda matter. It's like Frank Buffet coming out and saying the NASDAQ will not only entirely bottom out in two months, but cease to exist entirely, and then offering no insight, proof or evidence as to why, and then you expecting no one to react or comment. In an economics textbook, no less.

These ridiculous comments only reinforce the fact that Thom Yorke is a moron and a wretch who desperately needs a hard slap across the chops with the hope that it might wake the dozy fucker up and hopefully sting some sense into him.

OK, most of the major labels have been run chicken brained executives for some time but actually there is nothing wrong with the idea or purpose of a major label, in the past they have not only been of a huge benefit to music in general, they have more or defined what 'rock' or 'popular music' is.

Without major labels Elvis would only ever been an obscure local artist, The Beatles wouldn't have been bank rolled giving them free reign to create a body of work that literally changed the world, even punk - from which the modern independent scene stems - was a movement created by artists almost all of whom from Talking Heads and The Ramones to The Sex Pistols and The Clash were signed to major labels. Vile hypocrite that Yorke is, he blanks out the inconvenient fact that Radiohead's success is the product of major label backing.

Without major labels music would not have been the dominant form of popular culture that it has been for the past 50 years and without major labels music would almost certainly have to relinquish that title but you almost suspect that the people who decry major labels want that to happen so they can completely divorce themselves from reality and cling to some barely known niche culture that's cloaked in obscurity and contempt for the world that originates in a outwards projected self loathing.

Independent labels have their place, my main obsession in life is Postcard Records after all, but the ludicrous and childish view that music would be better off without major labels is the brainchild of minds where even a basic level of comprehension is a total stranger.

Elvis was on a label run by like two people.
A label like Atlantic is major because of the music, the producers and people. Not because they were a liquor company that decided that music was another good way to make money.

Major labels collected the vibrant smaller labels like baseball cards, and got rid of what made them great, and slowly became what we know now as major. How many major labels are there now? Four or five? That's not the same world that birthed the Beatles and the Stones and Motown and Stax and Sun etc.

i guess in one sense the statement is inflammatory. but not to me. if the 4 majors (or is it 3 now?) closed down in 8 weeks, would it have a significant impact on my enjoyment of modern music?

anyway, i'd just like to follow Yorke's claim to it's end. what if the "music biz" folded? would indie record stores close down because the major label cds they sell keep them in business? would bands tour more to keep themselves afloat? would bands that could've/should've/would've been never see the light of day? would the entire wheel of the industry be reinvented and everything will be different (but ultimately, we'll still have good music to enjoy)?

Yeah, the "majors" of today are very different from what they were even 20 years ago. Defending them because of the music that majors were putting out 40 or even 15 years ago seems a little misguided to me. I think they're trying to put their ears back to ground now because they've been more or less forced to, but only time will tell if they'll be able to stay relevant and function anywhere near like they did in their heyday.

Not that I agree with Thom Yorke or that I think it should even be a topic of discussion that he made some dubious comment. He's never been any kind of astute commentator, and it's an unfortunate byproduct of his celebratory that anyone cares about what he has to say or that he thinks it's worth saying. That doesn't mean that he's a joke or Radiohead's a joke or that Radiohead sucks, blah, blah, blah. Thom just needs to stick to writing moody, semi-abstract lyrics and solid melodies, but when someone becomes as famous as he is, I imagine that humility can be a little difficult. He kinda makes Bono seem not so bad, though.

I think the label's business plan needs to change and if they don't alter how the operate, they are under a lot of pressure to not fail, which is in part why they chase so fervently after P2P sharing, etc IMO.

I think they should learn a thing or two from some of the smaller labels and booking agencies on how to live in the world as it is now. Mass Media is over, or is at least amidst a death gargle, and the sooner the majors realize it and alter how they do business (which does not include contracts that require percentages of merch sold on the road either), the sooner they'll have staying power in the 21st century.

In that, I partially agree with Yorke. That said, I think it is rather arrogant and hypocritical to be so outspoken about the evils of the big labels without at least recognizing that he is where he is because of a system that worked for him and his mates. That said, I don't know that every time he criticizes the music industry he has to preface it with some disingenuous humility about how he got to where he is. That'd be overkill, IMO.

Look at everyone jumping on Thom, LOL.

Misleading journalism. Excerpt from the original BBC article:

"In the interview, carried out in February, Yorke said the fate of new artists was "an obsession" of bandmate Ed O'Brien, who is a leading member of lobby group the Featured Artists' Coalition.

Yorke said: "When we discuss it, he says it's simply a matter of time - months rather than years - before the music business establishment completely folds."