Radiohead new album: fans complain about bit rate

Radiohead have drawn complaints from fans who have been attempting to download their new album ’In Rainbows’ today (October 10).

An e-mail sent to fans who registered to buy the album says the songs are encoded at 160 kbps – which is higher than the iTunes rate of 128 kbps but not high enough for some fans.

Fans posting on Radiohead.com and fan site Ateaseweb have said that the band should have suggested the audio quality on the order page.

Wunderhorn1 on Ateaseweb.com said: “I just wish they’d given all the details when the order page went up so people could adjust their prices accordingly.”

While Link23 said: “160K is not worth paying for.”

In the meantime, if you haven’t got the album already you can hear it on a special NME Radio show that is being broadcast today.

We’re playing the album in its entirety with the next broadcast starting at 15:00, with a further repeat at 20:00 (BST).

As previously reported on NME.COM, the band have shocked the music industry by releasing the album as a download, with fans choosing how much to pay for the album.

Radiohead say they are planning a traditional CD release of ’In Rainbows’ for early next year.

Read NME.COM's first review of 'In Rainbows' online now.

Plus send us your reviews of the album. Email you 60 word mini-review of 'In Rainbows' to news@nme.com with Radiohead in the subject line. We'll publish the best later.


Also as there is current no artwork to go with 'In Rainbows' NME.COM has created some to fill in the gap. Head to the NME Office blog now and get some free MP3 player/ CD-R friendly artwork.

Read NME.COM’s brief history of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Colin Greenwood and Ed O’Brien from their days as On A Friday to Radiohead’s release of 'In Rainbows' now.

Radiohead tickets:

• Aug 20, 2009 12:00 at Greenpark St.polten, Austria - Buy from Seetickets

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