Radiohead’s King of Limbs Newspaper Album

The full double vinyl, CD and newspaper edition of Radiohead‘s polarising new album, King of Limbs, was not set to begin dropping on our doormats until May 9th, but – whether it’s a response to some of recent music press backlash or not – ours came through this morning.

And – like an Engadget writer with a new Android – we got rather excited, promptly dragging it out into the sunshine and doing one of those ‘unboxed’ things that they do on tech-blogs, only in this case it was more like, unbagged.

Radiohead's King of Limbs Newspaper Album

The package is designed in collaboration with – as all their output has for some years – acclaimed artist Stanley Donwood, who was interviewed by Creative Review this week, suggesting that the newspaper concept plays on the temporary state of an album in a bands career; “It’s not like the news stops when a newspaper comes out, it’s just ‘this is what’s happening today’. So this is released into the world on this day, and this is where this band are right now… it is a continuing thing.”

The interview also explains the distinct lack of effort applied to the CD casing; “If it could have been any worse, it would have been, there were difficulties with making it any worse. The original idea was to put ‘X Format’ on it and nothing else. Because I’ve hated them ever since I started doing record cover designs.” Elsewhere there’s the strong political messaging you’ll no doubt be expecting, positioned alongside Donwood’s beautiful oil paintings, whilst perhaps the most surprising element is the inclusion of a sheet of perforated blotting-paper which – of course – we haven’t remotely considered sticking in our gobs. Honest.

Predictably engaging and a welcome piece of tangible music related artwork in these digital days, whilst some may be questioning the recorded content, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the physical package…