Leave it to Radiohead's Thom Yorke to revolutionize the music world. With countless artists wondering how to capitalize on the new streaming age, Yorke and BitTorrent simply hatched an innovative variation to the traditional album model that reportedly scored him more than $20 million last year (via SPIN).
His Tomorrow's Modern Boxes release was simple but incredibly effective. For $6, fans could snag a download of his solo LP via the BitTorrent service, which combines free music files with paid-for content.
The site's year-end report stated that more than 4.4 million users downloaded the digital album, with 90 percent of sales revenue going back in Yorke's pocket.
"It was also a blueprint for how the Internet should work," BitTorrent wrote. "For artists. For fans. For good."
The simple concept and big dollar signs should be enough to sway more artists. The site claims that 20,000 different publishers use their digital packaging.
"If it works," Yorke wrote, "anyone can do exactly as we've done."
Yorke recently released the solo single "Youwouldn'tlikemewhenI'mangry" on BitTorrent, and we recently reported that Radiohead is currently in the studio working on their ninth album (the first since 2011's The King of Limbs).
"I always feel as when we start up like we still don't know really how to do it, and we don't know quite what to do," Johnny Greenwood told BBC Radio 1. "'Looking down avenues' is a very kind way of putting the kind of fumbling that we do, mainly because every time we try and do it like the last time because that worked, it never seems to work. So we talk about different approaches and we're currently trying a bunch out."
We named the upcoming Radiohead album as one of the most anticipated albums of 2015. You can check out that complete list right here.
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