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While I am, for the most part, a Radiohead fan (I thought HTTT was complete junk, and Kid A/Amnesiac should have been pared down to a single, consistently solid album), I'm not sure I'm ready to buy into this so-called paradigm shift in the recording industry just yet.
I don't like the way the major labels have ruined the business and careers of so many talented artists. But the fact is that I'm sick and tired of hearing artists who want to pretend that they don't owe a big chunk of their success to having been associated with those labels. Radiohead, for all their revisionism, made their name and fortunes with pretty big label backing (EMI). Their first album featured a hit radio single and went gold. They've had very expensive marketing campaigns, and were given complete creative control. I don't think this experience is common at all, and if they hadn't had the great songs, critical respect, and most importantly, the sales to back them up, they probably would have had none of those things.
I just hope that the next time someone touts a huge artist like Radiohead or Pearl Jam as being game-changers, that people remind themselves that they never would have been in the position they are in without playing the game for a while at first.
