Thom Yorke’s Bundle of joy

By jove, he's cracked it! Everyone, gather round: it looks like Thom Yorke (ABOVE) may have finally figured out that decade-old conundrum commonly known by musicians as: "How the hell do we make a living from this anymore?" Reports this week suggest that the Radiohead frontman could have made up to $20 million from the release of his second solo album Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.

With most people on the street unaware that Yorke even had a new album out, bypassing the marketing department seems to have paid dividends on this occasion. Yorke released the album via BitTorrent Bundles, a program that allows musicians, film-makers, artists or publishers to benefit from their product being torrented by “bundling” additional content with it and charging fans for the pleasure: $6, in this case. Upon releasing it in September, he described it as an effective way of “bypassing the self elected gate-keepers”.

BitTorrent say that it was downloaded 4.4 million times, meaning that Yorke potentially reaped the aforementioned sum – though this does seem more than a little optimistic, as it assumes everyone who downloaded the album paid for it.

So was the success of Tomorrow's Modern Boxes down to the new distribution model, or the fact that it's a release by the lead singer of one of the world's biggest rock bands? It remains to be seen whether Bundles will work as effectively for the little people – but at least it might stop Yorke complaining about Spotify for a few minutes.

Lauren Murphy

Pianos are falling through the floor

Could the era of the piano man or woman singing their songs and playing their melodies be coming to an end? Recent figures from the US indicate that there are fewer piano shops open for business because people are not buying the instrument any more.

Back in 1909, some 364,500 pianos were sold, but that figure has slumped to between 30,000 and 40,000 in recent years. With sales figures like that, it’s no wonder that piano shops are becoming an endangered species in US city centres.

Not even the piano's role at the heart of the successful film and musical Once (above)has helped stem the tide. (When the film was originally released, frustrated staff at Waltons music shop on Dublin's George's Street banned ham-handed customers from bashing out Falling Slowly in the shop, even though key scenes from the film were shot there.)

But while you’ll still find people taking up the instrument, the number of sales has declined as would-be musicians opt for keyboards, computers or used and reconditioned pianos instead.

Those in the business also point to the fact that kids who would have gone for music lessons in previous years are now turning to sports instead. It seems that running around a field after a ball has become more diverting and entertaining than sitting in solitary splendour at a piano learning scales.

Jim Carroll