10 Albums That Were Released Completely By Surprise
1. In Rainbows - Radiohead
After Radiohead dropped Hail to the Thief in the mid '00s, their record contract had officially been cleared up...and they could not have been happier. When they parted ways with EMI, they were all too happy to get away from the big machine of labels, thinking that they only focused on money and serving the bottom line than the artistic integrity and respect of the artists. These guys were now free men, and what they did next made for one of the wildest left turns in music history.
Which is strange because In Rainbows is still very much a Radiohead album, taking all of the trappings that made them great in the first place and making a tight experience out of it all. What really threw everyone for a loop was the way that everything came together, with Radiohead giving this album away on their website and letting their fans pay what they wanted to for it.
Even if you just wanted the free download of the album, fans could pay nothing and just opt to hear the new music. As much of a creative risk this could have been, Radiohead actually were pioneers of how you release records in the modern age, with fans getting more and more eager to hear the new record and the band actually making some sort of profit out of the whole deal. In an era when it looked like most mainstream music was thought of as disposable, the fans spoke up and let the labels know that this meant more than just 1.29 on iTunes.