Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

OH GOD I HAVE BECOME A HATER. BAN ME FROM THIS THREAD, BAN ME FROM LIFE.

bit torrent isn't rigmarole. it's simple and effective, it doesn't exclude anybody and it isn't associated with deep unpleasantness. the idea of feeling revulsion at something so simple is weird.

Wow, and here comes a man to explain why my emotions are wrong, time to remove the bookmark from the thread and go to bed. Thanks! Goodnight.

here comes another man to explain why your emotions are wrong. oh fuck you're already in bed.

sooooo, i like the warbly, old-cassette piano some of these tracks.

and wow 'Truth Ray'

I don't get the ridiculous track names but Mother Lode might be one of the best solo tracks he has ever released. The whole thing is pretty enjoyable... liking it better than Amok on first listen.

Ok end of the first listen. Highlights for me are: Mother Lode, Truth Ray and Nose Grows Some.

The vocal melodies to some tracks sound like they were quickly improvised over the electronic tracks, they're not very characteristic, but then, I guess they don't have to be.
The electronic production is Thom's best and most interesting yet. Makes his previous efforts sound amateurish there's some great rhythmic stuff going on... it sounds like he is emulating his influences (FlyLo, Burial, Modeselektor, Apparat) with varying degrees of success. It took him three albums but it seems like he has finally achieved the electronic sound he was after.

It seems some of you are too concentrated on the torrent aspect and haven't listened to the thing yet so here's a stream in soundcloud if you guys want to take a listen without paying:

https://soundcloud.com/tyrh/sets/tmb

hey if people are more interested in an artist's self-hyping about innovative content distribution than the artist's work, blame the artist

tell HIM "it's about the music, man"

fripp/dmglive has been releasing all of the cleaned up bootlegs and some studio things via bittorrent for ages. (but not any of the KC re-releases as, probably, they know the fans will pay a premium for the physical object). in any case, it's hardly an earth shattering model.

wouldn't be the first time someone told him robert fripp beat him to the punch

Really? It doesn't seem to me like self-hyping. Unexpected releases available for immediate download are becoming a standard distribution method. None of you are cool for not being impressed; it's not supposed to be impressive in the first place. You are assuming it's a gimmick because this is Thom Yorke.

i take it you didn't read the press release

what part of this sounds to you like someone who thinks they're using a standard distribution method and that you shouldn't be impressed

http://blog.bittorrent.com/2014/09/26/tomorrows-modern-boxes/

or the quotes above from the bittorrent exec about how excited thom and co were about being "first"

i read it as 'hey we thought maybe that was good idea let's try this' more than 'hey i'm changing the music industry my name is thom yorke'

and there is exactly one sentence about the music. point remains that if people are chattering about bittorrent, that's clearly on thom.

Ok, I'll pick the bait:

They are indeed the first to charge for a torrent file are they not?

What do I feel about the distribution method? Reading about his stances on itunes, spotify and his previous experience with big record labels I feel like Thom is honestly trying to legitimize a better means of music distribution, more than the idea of being 'I was there first'.BitTorrent is seen only as an illegal download method. This kind of move by Yorke is trying to show future artists that they don't need itunes etc. It is truly not about the money with this guy. He just seems to have a personal war against the current consumption of music and is using his fame to explore these paths.

Of course, having money helps not caring about the money. Thom is one of those artists that could put out an album inside a jelly donut and people would buy it, so he can use whatever method he wants. For the rest of the artists, you probably need to use ALL the methods simultaneously.

fyi i'm with thom on the fact that the record industry sucks, streaming is a joke for artists, etc etc etc. i just think putting up a "for sale" sign in the middle of a place built off swapped stolen goods is a joke, and if he's not getting anything for all the publicity he's giving bittorrent inc, he's a fool.

So, yes in a way Thom is trying to drag attention to the distribution method but I think deep down it's not as a marketing gimmick to sell this album but to generate discussion about the problems of music consumption nowadays.

Why does he think he will change the face of music all by himself or that a single release will bring down Spotify/Itunes an all the current models? I have no idea, but it's nice that he's at least trying. Weird ideals but whatever. At least he isn't trying to force-feed you his album like U2 did. I can see the end-of-year comparisons about good vs bad practices already.

I think putting the release on Bittorrent of all places is kind of the point?

Bittorrent needs to clean up his act a little bit and I guess they're receiving money off every sale so they're definitely happy about testing out a business model from this experiment and Thom wants to prove that even in the most unlikely place people will pay for your work if they think you're trying to make an honest 'connection' with your audience. Will it work? I don't fucking care.

a better means of music distribution

"better" for who

let's not pretend like it would be some hugely onerous task for Thom to front the money to print vinyl (or CDs or tapes or 8-tracks or what-the-fuck-ever) to stores and get it picked up by a distributor, which would enable other people in the supply chain that aren't horrible gangsters like bittorrent to make some money.

to for stores

that should say

There's a vinyl format that you can buy as well (a tad expensive at $50, though).

Surely the point is there aren't that many 100K selling albums that aren't up on iTunes these days? Isn't that point that if he can do it, why can't yer Beyonces etc?

He's kicked up a bit of dust and all of sudden he's an ugh pariah. Whereas if he'd just put it on all the normal distro channels like a good boy, it wouldn't even be an issue, and everyone would be talking about the music rather than anything else. Surely smth is wrong with that picture.

i think it's a bit absurd to pretend "all of a sudden" he's a pariah. obv non-fans found him obnoxious before this, obv plenty of his fans still love him

Yes I don't get why people in this place are hating on this simply because of the distribution method. It's not ill-intended, maybe extremely naive but his intentions seem pretty clear to me.

I just want to talk about the actual music. :(

then do it

I already did but it's no fun when all you guys want to do is talk about bittorrent.

but if you need people to actively ignore material provided by the artist about distribution, etc, and not make with the snark, you picked an odd place to pitch your tent

Lol @ $50 vinyl who does he think he is neil young

thom is like a neil young where trans won a grammy

Lol @ $50 vinyl who does he think he is neil young

― Οὖτις

You said you wanted mo money for the other people in the supply chain did you not?

" just think putting up a "for sale" sign in the middle of a place built off swapped stolen goods is a joke"

― da croupier, Saturday, September 27, 2014 1:19 AM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously? Surprised by the hatred towards BitTorrent here tbh. For you it's just a black market, for Branwell Bell it's an incomprehensible hax0r Assange thing? Come now.

Bitttorrent in theory is a great medium: it decentralizes content, it comes closest to a democratic way of sharing data or content than anything else. Just because it started out as a "place built off swapped stolen goods" doesn't mean it, as a distribution means, should be rendered a failure or criminal medium. In that respect, I applaud Yorke's attempt to get his fair dues (and let's be fair: 6 quid for an album ain't much) through torrents.

What bothers me is even for Yorke this can't really be about embracing bittorrent. The distribution model doesn't really matter when you add a 'pay here' sign. Whether it takes you to a YSI link, a self hosted rar file or a torrent, it doesn't matter. It's like he chose torrents as a novelty thing. It doesn't actually change anything about the way music is distributed, it doesn't do anything for bittorrent in itself. It is rather pointless, this. There's nothing to prove here, not this way.

(I got my copy of the record from what.cd. Illegally. Downloaded nearly 10,000 times since the record came out. )

you realize we basically said the same thing, except i used language acknowledging that bittorrent inc made a lot of money off ripping off artists

if it was just a black market i don't think they'd have a chief content officer to send to yorke's house to push their new model

and just in case someone wants to state the obvious, yes record companies rip off artists too, but primarily through disadvantageous contracts, not by providing platforms for people to trade music illegally and then running ads and charging premium for antivirus software.

Yes I realize. Mr. Freedom Fighter Yorke using evil corporate paypal is some next level hypocrisy too.

I really liked "A Brain in a Bottle" on one listen on good headphones!

Moka how much of that $50 do you really think is store markup

distribution - i'm amazed at all the anger and resentment on this thread. yeah, if they were going to continue experimenting with distribution methods they would have been better off going with bandcamp. and going with bittorrent means that it's going to keep a decent chunk of people from listening it (until it inevitably goes up on itunes in a few months) because they don't want to spend the 10 minutes it requires to learn how bittorent works. but jeez it's just someone putting their album out using an alternative method, it's not like there's a lamb opening a seal with a beast nearby

music - the track order is a little weird, since songs 4-8 are all better than the first three. i really like the production on this. i was a fan of the atoms for peace album and the eraser, but the sound of it was starting to get really sterile, and that inhumanity started to leak into King of Limbs (another unfairly maligned album imo). but certain songs on here sound much more natural and lived in ('nose grows some' in particular).

Moka how much of that $50 do you really think is store markup

― Οὖτις, sábado 27 de septiembre de 2014 2:35 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was joking, $50 for a vinyl record is ridiculous.

Nose Grows Some is beautiful. Radiohead/Thom Yorke always have such great ending tracks.

da croupier
Posted: September 27, 2014 at 12:05:26 AM
thom is like a neil young where trans won a grammy

lol

You know what? I *wish* I found more to talk about, and indeed to like about the music. I wish there were something that drew me in, and even made me want to listen to it again, rather than this vague sense of "oh, so that's Thom's new album."

I'm not someone who found him obnoxious before, and thinks this is a dick move. I'm someone with over two decades of fandom who thinks this is a dick move. So you can hardly accuse me of being prejudiced here.

More than anything, I'm disappointed that the music seemed so... flimsy and nothingy. And not in a sense that creates a floaty, beautiful sense of space, just like it was rushed out and didn't fully take the time to put the details in. It doesn't sound like his idols. It sounds like a guy who really loves a lot of that music, fucking about trying to do the same thing, fairly unsuccessfully, but because he's got one of the most beautiful voices in the western world, one puts up with the boring, stilted beats and the wishy-washy textures.

I dunno if it's him or me. It's entirely possible that it's me. That I used to feel an intense sense of connection to his music, and that gave the music an emotional charge which drew me in? Now that sense of connection is diminishing, the charge no longer works to bind me to the music on an emotional level? I would need more time with the record to work it out. The Eraser was something that took time to forge a connection, but I did connect. AMOK was something that no matter how many times I tried with that record, I could not connect to it.

I probably won't put the time in, probably won't be *able* to, because of the format of the record's release. (I don't have the bandwidth to listen to it 10 times on Soundcloud to make up my mind!) Which is maybe a shame, or maybe just a sign that this artist and I have gone in such different directions that it's time to let go of my fandom.

it might have been mentioned already, but dj shadow released new music through bit torrent a few years back, before thom. the deal might have been a bit different, but its not like thom was the first to think about doing this. either way, im not sure about using torrents to release new music, or if its a model that will work, but then people thought no one would pay for mp3s after napster etc, so who knows. but its better and more interesting than simply putting another album on itunes and giving all your money to them, though bandcamp might have been a nicer gesture. dont really care to listen to the album.