October 1, 2007 12:24

Radiohead new album: chart eligibility in doubt Radiohead Tickets

Seventh album could miss out on a certain Number One spot

Photo Gallery: Radiohead

With the shock announcement on their official website that the new Radiohead album ’In Rainbows’ will be released in little more than a week, doubt has been cast upon the album's chart eligibility.

The band have not set a price for the download version of the album, leaving the ‘price’ field blank and letting the customer decide how much to pay for the release.

Guitarist Jonny Greenwood has linked [url=www.inrainbows.com/store/quickindex2.htm ]to this site where the album has been made available to pre-order[/url] as a download and a discbox.

The download version will be available on October 10, while the discbox will be ready to ship on or before December 3, exclusively through Radiohead.com.

However, according to Meriel Blackburn, The Official Chart Company’s Head Of Chart Operations, the uniqueness of the album's availability has put its chart eligibility in doubt.

She told NME.COM: "As they are not a chart reporting retailer (any retailer which supplies their sales data to the chart panel), we don't currently receive sales information from them for inclusion in the charts.

"On chart eligibility, we have chart rules that products have to meet for us to include their sales in the UK charts. These cover content and packaging, etc. In this case we don't know enough about the products to be able to say whether they would meet the chart rules and be eligible."

If Radiohead's last few album releases are anything to go by, it is almost certain the record would top the album charts if it was eligible.

A final ruling on whether the record will chart is expected soon.

You can now
get a sneak preview of what the new Radiohead album sounds like on the NME Office Blog.

Plus as you can name your own price tell us how much you will play for the new Radiohead album.

Finally find out what the music industry’s reaction is to Radiohead’s unique release.