Wake Up: Radiohead Kinda Sucks

Album comes out a day in advance

(NEWSER) - Radiohead’s new album, The King of Limbs, has appeared a day early—and the reviews are already pouring in. Here’s what critics have to say:

• “The angst has gone,” writes Lucy Jones in the Telegraph . “There’s none of the anger of Hail to The Thief, the horror of OK Computer or existential anxiety that features on In Rainbows.” But that’s no downside: “It’s a treasure,” she writes. “There is no end to Radiohead’s genius.”

Band continues to self-release; download available Saturday

(NEWSER) - Radiohead is rolling out new album The King of Limbs this Saturday in digital format, the Telegraph reports, and it's once again forgoing a trifling thing like a record label. (The band notably self-released 2007's In Rainbows.) Fans eager to hear the album ASAP will have to take advantage of the $10 digital download, but will also be able to order CD and 10" vinyl editions on release day. More»

Radiohead frontman teams up with 'sock-penised' Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist

(NEWSER) - Radiohead purists, prepare yourselves: Frontman Thom Yorke is teaming up with, of all people, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The "sock-penised" bassist, along with Beck drummer Joey Waronker, percussionist Mauro Refosco, and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, will back Yorke up as he performs material from his 2006 solo album, The Eraser, at two Los Angeles gigs, New York reports. More»

(NEWSER) - Radiohead made waves when they let fans download their last album for whatever price they wanted, yet a new online-only track has been released in the past week to far less fanfare. "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" commemorates the last British veteran of World War I, who died last month aged 111, and proceeds from downloads are going to a military charity. The lush, orchestral song is a "masterly achievement" far from their traditional sound, writes Wall Street Journal critic Jim Fusilli. More»

This year has been a bummer, but the music's good

(NEWSER) - As the first half of 2010 draws to a close, James Montgomery lists his 10 favorite albums of the year—so far—for MTV :

• Kate Nash: “My Best Friend Is You represents Kate Nash at her most scattershot, squeaky and downright smart,” he writes. She’s made “an album that's rough, sprawling and unafraid to get plain weird.”
• Yeasayer: Odd Blood is “perhaps the most fittingly titled album in recent memory, a wavy, dreamy listen, full of supple, electronic fields that undulate and dip, creating precipitous peaks and delving canyons. Pop music for the 22nd century and beyond.”