Radiohead has broken its iTunes holdout. The British alternative rock group’s latest album “In Rainbows” has been made available to download from Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, the first and only album in its recording career to appear there.
Billboard.biz broke the news in December that Radiohead’s camp was in talks with iTunes to digitally distribute the new album, which officially landed internationally on New Year’s Eve through XL Recordings, except the U.S. and Japan, where ATO and Hostess Entertainment are respectively handling the release.
A banner on the iTunes homepage alerts visitors to the new release, which allows customers to buy the entire album or unbundle individual tracks from it. With every purchase of the full album, iTunes customers can download a podcast from the group, and a 15-page digital booklet. The album is available through iTunes Plus, which offers higher audio MP3 files.
The rest of Radiohead’s catalog — all of which was recorded for EMI — remains conspicuously absent from the world’s leading download store, although a handful of songs have appeared which were included on various soundtracks or compilations.
U.K. retailer 7digital scored a coup in September when it added full-album Radiohead downloads to its offering. The 7digital service also offers the new album in the high quality Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) format, both to purchase in its full-form and as individual titles.
The Oxford, England-originated band provided one of the music industry’s biggest talking points of 2007 when they initially released “In Rainbows” from their Web site in October solely as a download and allowed buyers to choose their own price for the recording.
The album is on target to open at No. 1 on the first U.K. albums chart of the New Year.
