Radiohead put “Reckoner” up for remixing, six parts for 99 cents

Radiohead have opened radioheadremix.com to remixes of “Reckoner”, as they did with “Nude” in April, timed to go with asking radio stations to play the song. Its six parts, bass, lead vocal, backing vocals, guitar, piano/strings and drums, are sold together on iTunes for the price of a single track, 99 cents in America, and cannot be bought one at a time; the five “Nude” parts cost 99 cents each.

“Nude” is a waltz, in 3/4, and the band's post on Dead Air Space, their blog, explains the choice of follow-up. we thought it only fair to do the same with a tune that at least is in 4/4.⁸

The files are DRM-free iTunes Plus, and buyers in the first two weeks also get a code for a GarageBand file of the song, which opens in Logic too. Remixers are told the first chord is C and the tempo 103.4 beats per minute. Finished mixes go up on the site for a public vote, with a widget to gather votes from an entrant's own site, Facebook or MySpace, and the competition closes on 23 October.

The same post gives the final count from the “Nude” site: 6,193,776 unique visitors, 2,252 mixes and 461,090 votes. Thom Yorke, announcing the new site on Dead Air Space yesterday, said the band had asked James Holden and Diplo to make versions to get things going. If it's anything like the Nude remix site it could get fairly nuts.⁷