June 3 - 9:05am EDT   Radiohead's back catalog is now at the iTunes Store (link), Apple has announced. Although the British band was previously selling material from its latest album, In Rainbows, its earlier albums had been left off, possibly due to licensing issues. In Rainbows was initially launched as an independent download, for which customers could pay as much or as little as they felt it was worth. A traditional CD release and digital distribution on Amazon followed. [full story]

April 1 - 10:15am EDT   British rock act Radiohead has taken a different approach with its latest single, the band has announced. Rather than commission a series of professional remixes for "Nude," any musician can now buy the song's underlying elements on iTunes (link), and remix them into a new track. Available "stems" include the voice, bass, guitar, drum, and string/FX layers; while shoppers have to buy before April 8th to get free GarageBand project files, the layers can be edited using many other programs, such as Logic. [full story]

March 14 - 12:00pm EDT   Nine Inch Nails' experiment with selling a new album almost exclusively by itself has netted more than $1.6 million over just the space of a week, the band said late Thursday. The group managed the figure for its instrumental album Ghosts I-IV through 800,000 individual downloads and orders. While some of these were free downloads of the first quarter of the album, a large but undisclosed number of these were either $5 paid downloads for the full offering or else preorders for physical copies that include the download, which range from $10 for the album alone to $300 for a collectors' edition that has already sold out. [full story]

January 29 - 11:50pm EST   Following in the spirit of Radiohead's "pay-what-you-want" offer, EMI is flat out giving away music tracks to subscribers of the New York Daily News. CNET writes that the voucher is good for three song downloads from the labels collection of over 120,000 tracks, including an unreleased track, "It's Love", by Ringo Starr. EMI's promotion will run on this coming Sunday, as well as the one that follows. [full story]

January 2 - 5:45pm EST   Alternative rock band Radiohead has added its latest album, 'In Rainbows,' to Apple's iTunes Store. The musical group's recording contract with major label EMI ended in 2004, and the band recorded as well as produced 'In Rainbows' without the help of a major label. The band sold copies of its album digitally online in October, allowing customers to choose their own price for the work. Radiohead was silent on official sales figures, but one report placed 1.2 million copies of the album on the hard drives of consumers on the first day of its release. [full story]

December 27 - 12:40am EST   Despite earlier suspicions that British band Radiohead would release its new album In Rainbows on the iTunes music store, digital shopping mogul Amazon is first to announce digital distribution of the new album, through its online MP3 store. According to Silicon Alley Insider, the band will be promoting the physical release of the album by streaming a free, hour-long concert featuring music from the CD, which frontman Thom Yorke says is a "wee celebration". Pricing for the album and tracks has been released, but prices typically sit at about 90¢ to $1 for tracks, while albums sell for around $10. [full story]

December 20 - 4:40pm EST   One of the key reasons Radiohead has refrained from signing on to digital music is licensing rights, the band's lead singer Thom Yorke says in an interview with Wired. The musician observes that the group's previous, multi-album contract with music label EMI contained virtually no clauses for digital music rights as it was struck years before digital music stores were available. Radiohead's release of In Rainbows in October with flexible pricing was the first real opportunity the group had to earn money on a digital offering. [full story]

December 7 - 9:45am EST   Radiohead may break from its policy on digital music stores with the band's latest album, according to news from Billboard. The British group's current representation, Courtyard Management, tells the music chart keepers that discussions are underway with Apple to bring In Rainbows to the iTunes Store; though terms are still uncertain and have not been discussed, any resulting deal will require either Apple or Radiohead to make concessions, according to the report. While Apple has insisted that every artist available through its store allow individual sales of tracks that run under 10 minutes in length, Radiohead has so far only allowed its albums to be sold as a whole ... [full story]