Remember how little we heard about Radiohead during those few years after the release of Hail to the Thief? I used to think to myself, "What is Thom Yorke up to these days, besides releasing a pretty decent solo album?" But for the past eight months or so, it's like Billboard has strapped a GPS to the guys' asses. They're in the news every day. In the past week alone, we've heard about their "green" performance on Conan O'Brien and their collaboration with MTV on an anti-human trafficking campaign. But that's not all.

Now Yorke is talking about last year's pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows, which was easily the record industry's 2007 story of the year, spawning similar strategies by Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams, and Prince. Even professional babbler Courtney Love has been talking a big game about putting out her next album in this format. But according to Yorke, the plan "was a one-off response to a particular situation," that is, Radiohead finding themselves with a treasure trove of new music and no label after leaving the train wreck that is EMI. "It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do," Yorke continued. "I don't think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time." Is it just me, or does this kind of seem like a slight directed at all of the above copycats?

The article reiterates that Radiohead has never announced how much they earned on In Rainbows, amidst speculation that many listeners paid nothing at all for the download. But it couldn't have been a total failure, as the CD, which came out in January on XL, did pretty well despite the fact that most fans probably already owned the digital version.