Radiohead, the band who revolutionized music accessibility yet hates Spotify, have uploaded their entire discography to YouTube. This news arrives days after Billboard announced they will factor in YouTube streams when determining an album’s chart status.
As of right now, you can head to Radiohead’s YouTube account and be blessed with every album (but technically not every song) they’ve officially released. The timestamps of everything up through Hail to the Thief have a published timestamp of 2016, notes r/radiohead, but YouTube has labeled each playlist as being “updated yesterday”, meaning Wednesday. No word if this was the band’s choosing or XL Recordings’, who acquired their catalog back in 2016.
Last Friday, Billboard broke the news that the Billboard 200 (as well as genre album charts, like Country, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Latin) will include official video plays from YouTube and “several music streaming services” when determining ranking. It’s the latest update in an effort to recognize the chart’s focal shift from pure sales to consumption model — even though music charts themselves aren’t always necessary.
(Read: Ranking Every Radiohead Song from Worst to Best)
It’s worth noting that back in 2013, Billboard started counting YouTube streaming data towards determining a song’s position on the Hot 100 Chart — just in time for “Harlem Shake” to clinch that first week’s No. 1 title. There’s no word on why Billboard waited six years to have YouTube plays impact album streaming data the way it’s influenced song streaming data, but hey, at least it’s happening.
Most everyone in Radiohead has been staying busy since being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in March. This year, Thom Yorke released his new solo album ANIMA, stepped out of the band’s shadow on his excellent solo tour, penned a Motherless Brooklyn song with Flea, and got an Oscar nod for it. Ed O’Brien revealed his debut solo album arrives in 2020, shared new singles off it, and announced his first-ever solo tour as well. Meanwhile, Jonny Greenwood launched a new record label for classical music, debuted new piece Horror vacui, played a Tiny Desk Concert, and restated just how much he loves to play the recorder. In other words, life is good.
