One of the few remaining well-known bands to refuse to sell its music on iTunes, Radiohead, has decided to finally decided to make all of its albums and some early singles available through iTunes as well as the 7digital music download store as individual songs. Radiohead first started by allowing songs from its album "Once In Rainbows" to be sold individually, but then decided to the same for its entire catalogue of albums. A lot of its fans have also requested to make its music available through iTunes.
For its iTunes tracks, its music is encoded as DRM-free AAC tracks. However, its songs sold on 7digital have a significant advantage over iTunes and other music services by using a high quality encoding of 320kbps MP3. For the Audiophiles, some of its tracks are also available in the Flac lossless codec, but for the albums we checked, there was a 50p premium per single or £3 per album to get the songs in this format. The store also makes some of its music available in other formats including 192kbps to 320kbps AAC and 192kbps WMA (DRM infected).
The main reason Radiohead avoided iTunes originally was due to its policy of selling individual songs from albums instead of allowing artists to sell their albums as complete only. Up until recently, there are only 3 Radiohead songs available through iTunes, as they are part of soundtracks and compilations available on iTunes.
It is great to see 7digital making certain tracks available in the FLAC lossless codec, as unlike other lossy codec’s such as MP3, WMA and AAC, this codec does not affect the sound quality and is also DRM-free. However, the higher price tag may put off some potential buyers, particularly since it brings album prices closer to or even higher than the CD versions, which are already of the same sound quality.
