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''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' is the second studio album by the English musician Thom Yorke, released on 26 September 2014. It was produced by Nigel Godrich, with artwork by Stanley Donwood, both of whom have long collaborated with Yorke and his band
Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
. The album blends Yorke's vocals and piano playing with electronic beats and textures. Yorke released ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' independently via a paid-for
BitTorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...
bundle. Yorke and Godrich criticised the streaming service
Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
, saying it did not fairly compensate new artists, and expressed their wish to give "control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work". The album was downloaded over a million times within six days, and became the most downloaded legal torrent of 2014. By February 2015, it had been downloaded more than 4.5 million times. A vinyl edition was also sold from the official site. In December 2014, Yorke released ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' on the online music shop
Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...
alongside a new song, "Youwouldn'tlikemewhenI'mangry". A CD edition was released in Japan in 2015 by Hostess Entertainment. In 2017, it was added to streaming services including Spotify and retail editions were released worldwide by XL Recordings. ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' received generally positive reviews and ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
'' named it one of the best albums of 2014.


Background

In 2013, Yorke contributed music to ''The UK Gold'', a documentary about
tax avoidance Tax avoidance is the legal usage of the tax regime in a single territory to one's own advantage to reduce the amount of tax that is payable. A tax shelter is one type of tax avoidance, and tax havens are jurisdictions that facilitate reduced taxe ...
, including an early version of the ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes ''track "A Brain in a Bottle". Before the album was announced, elements of ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes ''were used in the soundtrack for the second version of the ''Polyfauna ''app, released on 1 September 2014. The app, for Android and iOS, is an "experimental collaboration" between Yorke's band Radiohead and the British digital arts studio Universal Everything.


Music

''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' blends Yorke's vocals and piano playing with electronic beats and textures. Critics described it as "eerie" and "neurotic", with "a quiet, restrained sense of dread". '' The A.V. Club ''likened its music to the Radiohead tracks " Like Spinning Plates" (2001) and " The Gloaming" (2003). The opening track, "A Brain in a Bottle", combines Yorke's
falsetto Falsetto ( , ; Italian language, Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ...
with a stuttering beat and "old-school" oscillator effects. The Radiohead bassist
Colin Greenwood Colin Charles Greenwood (born 26 June 1969) is an English bassist and a member of the rock band Radiohead. Along with bass guitar, Greenwood plays Double bass, upright bass and Electronic musical instrument, electronic instruments. With his y ...
contributed beat programming to "Guess Again!",''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' vinyl packaging which features "decaying" piano and "crunchy" backbeats. "Interference" is a minimal "mumbled love song" with "chilly" synth pads. ''
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...
''described "The Mother Lode" as melodic and
dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...
-inspired, with an "intoxicating"
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beat. The album's second half features a ten-minute ambient suite led by the "percussive" techno looping track "There Is No Ice (For My Drink)". The final track, "Nose Grows Some", is "a glorious embrace of borderline
synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s b ...
". ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
'' described it as a "dread-soaked hymn of emotional defeat", likening it to Radiohead finales such as " Motion Picture Soundtrack" from '' Kid A'' (2000).


Release

In 2013, Yorke and his longtime producer Nigel Godrich expressed concern about how the internet had affected the music business, and accused the music
streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...
service
Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
of not compensating new artists fairly. Godrich stated: " treamingcannot work as a way of supporting new artists' work. Spotify and the like either have to address that fact and change the model for new releases or else all new music producers should be bold and vote with their feet." In 2007, Yorke's band
Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
self-released their album '' In Rainbows'' as a pay-what-you want download. Matt Mason, the chief content officer at BitTorrent Inc, felt the release set a "gold standard for how to do something direct-to-fan on the internet", and began talks with Radiohead's managers about the future of online music distribution. He told ''
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'' that ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' was "born out of these conversations we had on how the internet should work for artists: the vision we both share, which is that at present we don't have a sustainable business model for artists on the internet". MBA students at Saïd Business School at the
University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
worked in secret with Yorke's management for the release, analysing fan and market data. In September 2014, Yorke posted a photo of an unidentified vinyl record on
Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...
, prompting media speculation about a new release. Yorke and Godrich announced ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' on 26 September. It was released the same day via the peer-to-peer file sharing protocol
BitTorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...
using BitTorrent Inc's "bundles" initiative, whereby creators distribute their work in packaged torrent files. It was the first album to use BitTorrent's "pay-gate" feature; customers paid US$6 (£3.69) to download the ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' torrent bundle containing eight MP3 files, cover artwork by Stanley Donwood, and a music video for "A Brain in a Bottle" featuring Yorke in
boxing glove Boxing gloves are cushioned gloves that fighters wear on their hands during boxing matches and practices. Unlike "fist-load weapons" (such as the ancient cestus (boxing), cestus) which were designed as a lethal weapon, modern boxing gloves are n ...
s. Users could also download a free torrent bundle containing only the "Brain in a Bottle" MP3 and video, or order a "deluxe" vinyl edition of the album packaged in a bespoke antistatic bag. In a press release, Yorke and Godrich wrote:


Other formats

On 26 December 2014, Yorke released ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes ''in MP3 and FLAC formats for £3.86 on the online music shop
Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online music distribution platform founded in 2008 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with an office and record store in Oakland, California. Acquired by Epic ...
. He also released a free new song, "Youwouldn'tlikemewhenI'mangry", described by Godrich as a "complimentary addendum" to the album. On 30 June 2015, ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' was made available to stream with the launch of
Apple Music Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...
. A CD version was released in Japan by Hostess Entertainment in August 2015. On 8 December 2017, it was reissued on CD and vinyl by XL Recordings and added to further streaming services, including Spotify, along with Yorke's other solo work.


Sales

''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' was downloaded over 100,000 times in the first 24 hours of release and over a million times in its first six days. Excluding internet
piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are call ...
, it'' ''was the most torrented album of 2014. By February 2015, it had been downloaded more than 4.5 million times. These figures include downloads of the free torrent bundle containing only the "Brain in a Bottle" MP3 and music video; separate figures for the album bundle were not released. ''
Stereogum ''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine. ''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several awar ...
'' and Gigaom estimated that Yorke may have made $20 million from the release, more than he would likely have made through a traditional release. ''Stereogum'' wrote that "this sort of album-release strategy only works for artists who are already astronomically famous, but salute Thom Yorke for figuring out ways to keep stacking cash while keeping his artistic autonomy". However, ''Billboard'''' ''argued that, assuming the ratio of people who paid for the full album was comparable to subscription numbers of Spotify and Pandora, earnings between $1 and 6 million were more likely: "Not bad showing for a self-released, direct-to-fan album that allowed Yorke to circumvent major download stores and gather customer information — but it's no Hollywood starring role, either." In November 2015, asked if the BitTorrent release had been a success, Yorke said: "No, not exactly. But I wanted it to be an experiment ... I wanted to show that, in theory, today one could follow the entire chain of record production, from start to finish, on his own. But in practice it is very different. We cannot be burdened with all of the responsibilities of the record label. But I'm glad I did it, for having tried to."


Reception

At
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' has an average score of 72 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". The
AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
critic
Stephen Thomas Erlewine Stephen Thomas Erlewine (; born June 18, 1973) is an American music critic and former senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of multiple artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance ...
described ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' as "deliberately underwhelming, an old-fashioned grower that doesn't startle upon first listen but rather slowly unfolds ... Instead of wallowing in alienation, Yorke has found comfort within it on ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' and the difference is palpable." Rob Sheffield of ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
''wrote that it "demands deep listening" and praised "Nose Grows Some" as the strongest track. ''Rolling Stone'' named the album the 30th-best of 2014. The ''
Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...
'' critic Franklin Jones wrote: "This is paranoia with a soul, and occasionally a heart ... ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' maintains the trademark elements of a Thom Yorke release while injecting subtle moments of fresh invention." Barry Nicholson of the ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' wrote: "It's hardly love at first listen … Yet across repeat plays, the album's charms begin to unfurl." '' The A.V. Club'' gave the album a positive review, but wrote: "Flashes of brilliance aside, the result sounds an awful lot like something Yorke dashed off to pass the time before delving into the new Radiohead album." Mark Beaumont of the ''Guardian'' called it "deviously understated", but found that its unconventional release was "more impactful than the product". Larry Fitzmaurice of ''
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'' wrote: "There's precious little to grab on to in terms of melody and feeling, and you won't find yourself humming along to anything here. That said, certain elements of ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'', if given the right amount of attention, can be enjoyable to luxuriate in." Chris Barton of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' found it too similar to Yorke's 2006 solo album '' The Eraser'' and his work with Atoms for Peace, writing that "Yorke's path seems short on new directions".


Track listing


Personnel

Adapted from the ''Tomorrow's Modern Boxes'' packaging. * Thom Yorke – music, vocals; artwork advice (credited as Tchocky) * Nigel Godrich – production, editing *
Colin Greenwood Colin Charles Greenwood (born 26 June 1969) is an English bassist and a member of the rock band Radiohead. Along with bass guitar, Greenwood plays Double bass, upright bass and Electronic musical instrument, electronic instruments. With his y ...
– beat programming on "Guess Again!" *
Bob Ludwig Robert Carl Ludwig (born December 11, 1944), is a retired American mastering engineer. He mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists, including Led Zeppeli ...
– mastering * Stanley Donwood – artwork ("holes dug & filled in")


Charts


Notes and references


External links

* * {{Authority control 2014 albums Albums produced by Nigel Godrich Self-released albums Thom Yorke albums