Radiohead Drops 18 Hours Of Music After Being Blackmailed With Its Release

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According to guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the English rock band chose to release the outtakes as a way to thwart ransom-demanding hackers. All proceeds from the sessions will go directly to Extinction Rebellion, described in a press release as "a socio-political movement which uses nonviolent resistance to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse".

Posting to Twitter, Jonny Greenwood explained: "We got hacked last week - someone stole Thom's minidisk archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on thread of releasing it".

Jonny Greenwood, the band's guitarist, said: "Instead of complaining - much - or ignoring it, we're releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion". Releases all 18 themselves for £18 for 18 days with profits going to Extinction Rebellion.

Greenwood said it was never intended for release and was "only tangentially interesting".

When you get hacked and held to ransom you can either cough up the cash or call the hackers' bluff, and Radiohead opted to do the latter. "Not a phone download", he warned fans, adding: "Rainy out, isn't it though?"

"We've been hacked", a statement on the page reads.

OK Computer is Radiohead's third studio album released on June 16, 1997, and it went straight to number one on the UK Albums Chart and to the 21 spot on the Billboard 200 despite the band's label considering it both hard to market and uncommercial.

And it's certainly a smart way to avoid giving in to a bully when they threaten to publish 18 hours of your unedited, early work.

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