November 13, 2007 14:54

Radiohead and former label at war Radiohead Tickets

Band in Google drama

Photo Gallery: Radiohead

Relationships between Radiohead and former label EMI are said to be tense after the label removed a misleading ad for the group's back catalogue from the internet.

Until the end of last week, anyone typing in ’Radiohead’ into Google would be met with a paid-for ad at the top of the search results.

It read: "Radiohead - New Album 'In Rainbows' now available as boxset".

However, the ad led not to the special "discbox" edition of ’In Rainbows’ but to a website where EMI subsidiary Parlophone is selling a box set of the seven albums Radiohead recorded while they were still signed to the label.

That the two box sets are coming out at the same time in December and at the same price had already led some fans to believe that EMIis trying to compete with its former charges' independent release. While EMI has denied this, the ad raises new questions about the label's motives.

A spokesperson for the record label told The Guardian: "Parlophone were aware of the data source glitch and removed the link immediately."

When asked to confirm that this meant that the label had indeed placed the Google ad and then removed it, the company spokesman twice declined any further comment or clarification.