Radiohead Release “Burn the Witch” on Spotify and YouTube, Despite Thom Yorke’s Previous Hate
Today, Radiohead debuted their new single “Burn the Witch” with a video that premiered on YouTube. Shortly afterwards, the song became available on Spotify, Tidal, and iTunes. For pretty much any other band, this wouldn’t be notable: every day, artists premiere videos on YouTube and stream their new songs on Spotify. But given Thom Yorke’s contentious relationships with both services, it’s a bit of a surprise.
In 2013, Yorke compared YouTube and parent company Google to Nazi Germany. In an interview with an Italian paper, he said:
I don’t have the solution to these problems. I only know that they’re making money with the work of loads of artists who don’t get any benefit from it. People continue to say that this is an era where music is free, cinema is free. It’s not true. The creators of services make money – Google, YouTube. A huge amount of money, by trawling, like in the sea – they take everything there is. ‘Oh, sorry, was that yours? Now it’s ours. No, no, we’re joking – it’s still yours.’ They’ve seized control of it – it’s like what the Nazis did during the second world war. Actually, it’s like what everyone was doing during the war, even the English – stealing the art of other countries. What difference is there?
Also in 2013, Yorke and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich pulled their music from Spotify in protest of the streaming service’s business model. “The reason is that new artists get paid fuck all with this model. It’s an equation that just doesn’t work,” Godrich tweeted. “Make no mistake new artists you discover on #Spotify will not get paid. meanwhile shareholders will shortly being rolling in it. Simples,” Yorke tweeted. Later, in an interview with a Mexican publication, Yorke called Spotify “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.”
“Burn the Witch” has been released through XL, who recently acquired the band’s back catalog.
Spotify offered no comment on the song’s availability, but they did tweet this:
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