The soundtrack to New Moon is drawing very mixed reactions over at Stereogum, and in other forums for music discussion. On the one hand, New Moon is (the second) part of the Twilight saga, and thus despised by the hipsterati.
But the soundtrack is considered a candidate for best album of 2009. A more recent ‘gum pst reports a leak of the soundtrack and includes MP3s of tracks by Thom Yorke and others.
There are comments along the lines of: how could the great Thom allow his music to be part of Twilight, which sucks like… well, like a teenage vampire.
Part of the answer lies in the new music model that Thom Yorke and Radiohead helped to make prominent two years ago, with the pay what you want web release of In Rainbows. A lot of people wanted to pay zero, and would have done so anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of those very people are disappointed in Thom for taking the chance to make money from the New Moon soundtrack.
Thom Yorke does not need to put a song on a soundtrack to make money, that’s silly. Radiohead made MORE money with the In Rainbows “pay what you want” model than they did for the album before it, the EMI release Hail To The Thief. In Rainbows, even AFTER the almost free release on the web (where they made money even if it had the “free option”), got to sell more than 3,5 million copies in it’s physical format worldwide. Yorke has a history in having songs in movie soundtracks, as in Clueless, Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet, Choke, A Scanner Darkly, The Prestige and recent documentary Age of Stupid. Kudos to New Moon director Chris Weitz who asked Yorke personally for a song and had his wish granted.
And Radiohead fans, yes, hate Twilight, but the song is so good, most aren’t bothered by the movie anymore. We have a new Yorke track, that’s what matters.
Thanks for stopping by, SamK. There are some Radiohead fans bothered by Thom stooping to provide music for movies they don’t like (follow links to Stereogum to see comments).
I certainly agree with you that Thom doesn’t need any more money.