Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University Communication Theses Department of Communication 2-23-2009 Radiohead: The Guitar Weilding, Dancing, Singing Commodity Selena Michelle Lawson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_theses Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Lawson, Selena Michelle, "Radiohead: The Guitar Weilding, Dancing, Singing Commodity." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2009. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_theses/47 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Communication at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. RADIOHEAD: THE GUITAR WEILDING, DANCING, SINGING COMMODITY by SELENA LAWSON Under the Direction of Jeffery Bennett ABSTRACT In 2007, Radiohead released a downloadable album, In Rainbows, allowing consumers to pay what they thought the album was worth. The band responded to a moment of change in the music industry. Since then, other bands, like Nine Inch Nails and Coldplay, have made similar moves. Radiohead's capability to release an album and let the fans decide its worth relied on the image they built, which foregrounded their commodification. The historic move redefined the boundaries between art and commodity, a well know tension in popular music studies. The thesis focuses on popular music as communication in the changing industry. Using Radiohead’s album as a case study, it looks at the changing boundaries in the tension between art and commodity. The thesis examines Radiohead's performance, its mediation by the press, and what the album’s distribution method meant to the fans.