“Street Spirit” remix by Paul Oakenfold is blocked, then leaks to Napster

Radiohead have refused Paul Oakenfold permission to put his remix of “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” on Planet Perfecto, his compilation, and he says it will now never come out. Two days after NME reported the refusal on 6 November, several people had put the remix up on Napster anyway.

The band have put out other people's remixes before. The “Planet Telex” single in 1995 carried an LFO mix, and the second CD of “Karma Police” in 1997 had mixes of “Climbing Up the Walls” by Zero 7 and by Fila Brazillia.

Oakenfold, who has remixed U2 and Massive Attack, reworked the song from The Bends to play in his DJ sets. He told the Irish online magazine oceanfree.net that Radiohead would have had the publishing money from it, and that as far as he is concerned they don't like dance music. It's always the purists who don't like it. They're always moaning, the purists, you can never keep the anoraks happy.¹