WE ARE LIVING IN A TRANSCENDENT MOMENT IN MUSIC HISTORV
It's not hyperbole to say, in the music world, that October 2007 should be viewed as no less significant than November 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. Why? Radiohead began to sell its latest album, In Rainbows, on its website that month, charging whatever fans wished to pay. Underground bands had already been successfully bypassing the corporate music industry and using the Internet to find worldwide audiences, but it took a band of Radiohead's magnitude to bring down the whole system by opting out of it. But now we've done it-we the listeners, we the musicians. Now we're all in this together without that wall separating us, the wall music-industry suits exploited for the exclusive purpose of enriching themselves. Given the way things were already going, the only question is, Why did it take so long for a band with a huge cult audience to do this? With Radiohead's fans paying an estimated average of a little more than $2 an album, Thorn Yorke and comDanv will eniov eas-
ily the biggest payday of their recording career. They also made your favorite rock album of the year, despite announcing the release of In Rainbows after our readers poll ballot had gone to press. (What could be more appropriate in this age of radical musical democracy than a victory by online write-in votes?) All these changes happening at the front edge of the music business are turning out to be great for rock icons of yore, too. The concert experience has taken on additional signif icance-a gathering of the tribes in an era of splintered audiences. By far the biggest concert of the past year was the reunion of Led Zeppelin (pictured here in 1975). The reissue of Zep's classic live document The Song Remains the Same also topped readers' favorites and whetted appetites for what could be far and away the biggest tourthe world has everwitnessed. Here's betting Zep also sells new live albums on its own website. Long may the hammer of the gods reign.
In the following pages we present a yearbook taking in the sexiest music videos of 2007, conversations with some favorite artists, an insider peek at the record collections of the stars and, of course, the full results of our annual readers poll.
