Culture

Radiohead Scores Another U.K. No. 1 Album

by Jarrett Martineau | January 7, 2008 at 09:38 am

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What's amazing about the Radiohead juggernaut is that, in the midst of confounding conventional industry revenue models and maintaining their status as darlings of the music blogosphere, they've gone ahead and produced an actual, physical CD that's selling more than any other band's music by the most conventional retail means available. I guess that's what you might call having the best of both worlds?

Radiohead made their expected arrival at No. 1 on the new U.K. album chart yesterday (Jan. 6) with "In Rainbows," released in the U.K. and internationally Dec. 31 on XL Recordings. "X-Factor" winner Leon Jackson snagged a third week at the top of the singles chart with "When You Believe" (Syco Music/Sony BMG).

Radiohead's victory gives them their fifth U.K. No. 1 album, a sequence that began with 1997's "OK Computer" and also includes "Kid A" (2000), "Amnesiac" (2001) and 2003's "Hail to the Thief." A single from the new set, "Jigsaw Falling Into Place," is commercially released in Britain on Jan. 14.

t's been available as a download for over three months, but chart recognition has finally arrived for In Rainbows as the CD version of Radiohead's latest album debuted at number one in this week's album charts.

On its initial release in October, In Rainbows was famously only available as a pay-as-much-as-you-wish download or as part of a £40 boxset sold straight from the band's website, thereby disqualifying it from entering the charts. The band subsequently agreed a deal for a physical CD release through record label XL which went on sale last week. Its sales success marks the fifth time Radiohead have reached the top of the album charts in the UK.