Liberty and links

Check this out! Radiohead is releasing their latest album on their website later this month, and fans can choose how much they want to pay for it. Apparently, one of those choices is not paying for it at all. How revolutionary is this? Radiohead is basically giving power to the fans, allowing them to determine what the music is worth to them.

I hope someone tells us the result of this experiment, because I'm curious about how much guilt will play into people's decisions. If a band tells you to name your own price for their music, would you feel comfortable telling them "I'd rather just have your album for free, thanks. I don't want to pay you for your hard work"? Or would you choose to pay something affordable yet fair, like $5? Their offer is for the digital download only - they plan to release an actual CD version next year.

I'm not really a Radiohead fan (I do need to get OK Computer someday, though), but I'd like to thank them for taking a chance and assuming their fans are good people who realize the value of what the band does. They may not make a typical $16 per album sold, but I'll bet many people will pay at least a few dollars for the download. They'll do it because they want to support a band that supports them in return.

I have a couple other links that I wanted to throw in the mix today:

• AV Club has a very insightful, intelligent interview with actor Willem Dafoe. You've at least seen him in Spiderman, but he's been in so many other movies, and he talks about his career in this article.

• Rolling Stone has another list for you - the top 25 music DVDs of all time. I don't have too many of them (actually I don't think I have any), but they all sound really good. No, they're not all concert DVDs. I have one little complaint, though - I really hate when sites make a list, but only have one entry per page. I'd rather scroll through one or two pages than click through 25 individual pages. They could at least have made a simple list on the first page with links to each entry.