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One day after the online-only release of new Radiohead single “Harry Patch (In Memory of),” Thom Yorke issued commentary on the recent changes in musical consumption.
The Radiohead frontman and sometime-solo act told The Believer magazine that he particularly hates CDs – a sentiment that has seen fruition in the release of this recent single as well as the band’s previous album release, In Rainbows. According to Yorke, the CD sales are feeding the zombie that the music industry has become.

“Me and Stanley [Donwood, the designer] always hated CDs,” Yorke said in the interview. “Just a fucking nightmare. There’s a process of natural selection going on right now. The music business was waiting to die in its current form about 20 years ago. But basically, it was dead.”

The band plans to release more singles in an online-only format and York went on to discuss the thought that online retail has rejuvenated a fifties-style market for song singles.
He told The Believer: “If you forget about the money issue for just a minute – and you look at it in terms of the most amazing broadcasting network ever built, then it’s completely different.”

That being said, the band doesn’t have any plans to release an entire album in the near future.

“None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again,” Yorke reported. “Not straight off. I mean, it’s just become a real drag. It worked with In Rainbows because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going. But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.”