Radiohead's latest release was missing on Spotify until early this (Wednesday) morning, and iTunes had it on Monday. But despite Radioheads penchant for windowing, this doesn't seem like a calculated delay, according to details shared with Digital Music News. But why the two-day lag? This could be a tiny window for a tiny release, but a Spotify executive told Digital Music News that this was merely an ingestion delay. In fact, the company had both songs in its possession on Tuesday, though a backlog (of roughly 20,000 tracks daily) pushed the live date.
Of course, try telling that to a Radiohead superfan, who undoubtedly grabbed this on day one - from iTunes or somewhere else. And other streaming services had the songs on Tuesday, including Rdio and MOG. Seems like a big deal to those that cared, but ultimately a short-lived advantage.
But what happens the real thing - ie, the next, full-blown album - appears? Then, Radiohead is likely to trigger some serious windowing, just like before. But for now, this seems like a low-key pair of tracks dialed more towards the superfan. It's packaged as a digital 'A' and 'B' side, with "The Daily Mail" on one and "Staircase" on the other. Both are taken from The King Of Limbs: From The Basement, a studio performance video previously released on DVD and Blu-ray.
And on the earlier audio release, King of Limbs, Radiohead did orchestrate a complicated windowing strategy. That is, first as a download, then CD/LP, then digital distribution and streaming. This latest song releases are merely an echo of that earlier project.
Source
Posted 12/2011
