Radiohead are one of the more enlightened bands when it comes to pioneering and embracing digital media and distribution. Most famously, they offered up their last album for free but in terms of engaging creatively with the audience you sometimes can't beat a good old fashioned remix competition.
To kick off the release of their single Nude the band held an online contest to remix the track. The execution of the competition was stunning and perhaps the best I've seen. To make remixing easier, the separate 'stems' from the song were made available to purchase from iTunes. The 'stems' available are bass, voice, guitar, strings/fx and drums and you could mix them in any way you liked. A great way to drive creativity and revenue. But it gets better....if you purchase all five 'stems' from iTunes during the first week they were available, you were sent an access code to a GarageBand file ready to open in GarageBand or Logic.
Now, given the track's waltz beat a traditional remix was shockingly tricky. Even Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition "for a laugh" and to find out what would come out of such an impossible task. But Radiohead fans are an ingenious and resourceful lot and there are scores of weird and wonderful remixes going head to head in a public vote.
Pick of the bunch has to be James Houston, who's produced a video to accompany his effort. He posted it on Vimeo for all geeks to salivate over. Awesome.
Thanks Hilary via Twittr
