Legendary British rock band Radiohead came up with a climate-friendly solution when hackers threatened to release stolen tapes of the studio sessions for their venerated album, OK Computer: the musicians offered up the recordings online for about US$23 each, and directed all the proceeds to Extinction Rebellion.
The “treasures” included in the stolen recordings include a 12-minute version of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android, a demo recording of Karma Police, and dozens of unfinished or unreleased songs, reports BBC music critic Mark Savage.
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Guitarist Jonny Greenwood was less rhapsodic, observing in a statement that the “very, very long” tapes were “only tangentially interesting” and “not a phone download.”
Undaunted, “fans have already annotated the music in an extensive Google document, detailing all the alternative lyrics and instrumental variations from the sessions,” Savage writes.
The UK-based Extinction Rebellion has been around for a little more than a year, but has already had considerable impact around the world, using often highly original forms of peaceful civil disobedience to force politicians to confront the multiple perils facing the natural world—with climate change at the top of the list.In a heartfelt thank you to the band released on its website, complete with à propos lyrics from Radiohead songs, Extinction Rebellion thanked the band “for supporting us so that we can continue to build our already far-reaching and powerful movement.”
