Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Warns: Music Industry Will Fold Within Months

Although outspoken Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has made a fortune through his EMI label contract, he warned talented young music stars not to sign with a major label, claiming the mainstream recording industry is dying.

Yorke made his statements to the authors of a new textbook for citizenship studies, The Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit, which aims to inspire young people to become more politically literate . He was asked during an interview what advice he would give to teenagers who wanted to make a difference with their music.

The London Evening Standard reports that Yorke explains that the mainstream music industry is dying and that this will be “no great loss to the world” before telling aspiring musicians not to tie themselves to the “sinking ship”.

He furthermore suggests that it will be “only a matter of time — months rather than years — before the music business establishment completely folds”. Radiohead split acrimoniously from EMI when they failed to agree new terms after completing 6 albums with the label. Their seventh album, In Rainbows, was released as a ‘pay what you want’ download via the Internet in 2007.

EMI’s new executive chairman, Charles Allen, seems to disagree and  claimed the label was on a “firm foundation for growth” despite its debts. Although EMI owes its bank, Citigroup, about £3 billion, they have more than trebled cash generation at its recorded music division