OK, I know that Radiohead and the Rolling Stones have five letters in common and not a whole lot else, and I also know that some on this board have strong negative opinions about Radiohead. So this thread is not intended to discuss Radiohead's music.

But I just received the discbox version of Radioheads new album In Rainbows, and I am thrilled with how wonderfully put together it is. It's a thing of beauty, and it makes me long for the days when you bought albums and could lose yourself in the sleeves, especially the double gatefolds with booklets and other surprises (like postcards in Exile on Main Street).

It's in a hard-cover book format, and includes the 10-track CD, a bonus CD, two vinyl LPs, a full-size booklet, a lyric booklet bound into the book. The whole thing slides into a sturdy slipcase.

When I downloaded In Rainbows in October (the download was part of the discbox purchase, but the discbox did not ship until this month), I lamented not having some kind of physical reference to the music. The discbox provides that.

This is a quite good example for what is possible if there´s a love for detail, quality & more. With a fanbase, and of course the Stones have a big fanbase, it´s possible to do such things. But it´s also a philosophy thing.

It'll be interesting to see how In Rainbows will be packaged when it gets a traditional CD release. The order page on Amazon shows the cover; I imagine that there will be some kind of expanded sleeve. It'll also be interesting to see what kind of sales are generated by the CD release, after the album has been made available for download.

The artwork on Radiohead albums, especially from OK Computer on, seem to have artistic unity and mood. Wilco is another band whose albums have a striking artistic quality when you look at them all placed next to one another. As bluesinc hinted, both bands seem to have a philosophical commitment to high quality art: visual and non-visual.