Radiohead biography
Radiohead's eighth album, The King of Limbs, was digitally released in February 2011 through the band's web site. The announcement of the album on Valentine's Day was followed by the Internet release four days later, along with a music video for the song "Lotus Flower". The King of Limbs was released in CD, vinyl and standard download formats in March, and in a "newspaper album", which included art, writings, and a CD as well as vinyl edition of the record, in May. In March, to coincide with the retail release of the album, the band also issued "The Universal Sigh", a different edition of the custom newspaper, featuring poetry, stories, essays, lyrics, and art, for which the band employed people to distribute it free in the centre of select cities throughout the world. After being sold exclusively through the band's website for nearly two months, The King of Limbs charted at number seven in the United Kingdom on its retail release in late March 2011, becoming the band's first album since The Bends not to debut at number one in the UK. In the United States it reached number three, on par with the band's last major label release, 2003's Hail to the Thief. In July 2011 The King of Limbs vinyl edition was reported to be the best-selling vinyl of the year so far by a large margin, and Radiohead were credited with helping an ongoing surge in vinyl sales.
Like Kid A, no singles were released from The King of Limbs; However, "Lotus Flower" charted in a number of countries due to digital sales or radio airplay, and manipulations of its music video, featuring Thom Yorke dancing to different songs, became a popular internet meme. On 16 April 2011, Radiohead released a single on vinyl, "Supercollider / The Butcher", for Record Store Day. The band revealed that they worked on both songs during sessions for The King of Limbs, but decided they didn't fit on it. "Supercollider," at over seven minutes, is the longest studio-recorded song ever released by Radiohead in any form. Digital files of the songs were made available at no cost to anyone who had already purchased the album on the band's website, and the band uploaded audio of the songs to their YouTube channel. Radiohead also released a series of remixes from The King of Limbs on various 12" vinyls, with a CD collecting the remixes to be released in the Autumn. Remixers announced so far include Caribou, Jacques Greene, Lone and Four Tet. The band also uploaded each remix as it was released to their YouTube channel and their website for free streaming. The King of Limbs and TKOL RMX 1234567 were released on the band's own imprint label, Ticker Tape Ltd., owned by the band's label XL Recordings.
On 21 June 2011, a video of the band performing a new song, "Staircase", was uploaded by the band to YouTube. On 24 June 2011, Radiohead played as a "secret" act at the Glastonbury Festival, where they introduced another new song previously performed by Yorke, "The Daily Mail". The band made their first public performance of many songs from The King of Limbs at Glastonbury, for which they were joined by a guest member, Portishead touring drummer Clive Deamer. In July 2011, a number of television channels around the world debuted a taped live performance of the From the Basement series, featuring Radiohead and Deamer performing every song from The King of Limbs, as well as "The Daily Mail" and the previously released live performance of "Staircase".
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