While the rest of the nation was watching Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination in Denver, Radiohead was in Santa Barbara, CA, bringing their international summer-long In Rainbows tour to a triumphant, if subdued, close. The biggest band in the world proved last night exactly why they can give their album away and still be a wild success; they’re maniacally passionate about what they do, and the authenticity of delivery matched with sheer instrumental genius lifts them head and shoulders beyond the lion’s share of arena bands out there.

Radiohead proved once again last night that they’re atmospheric pioneers in a purgatorial electronic landscape, where the running theme is delicate despair with bursts of angelic optimism. Whether they’re pushing industry envelopes, making crazy laser beam videos or simply blowing minds and dropping jaws with their music, this band is undoubtedly among the best of our generation.

So you’ve probably heard by now that Radiohead’s got a new video out that was shot using some newfangled laser beam space technology. House Of Cards features real time 3D recording instead of cameras, utilizing structured light and Lidar laser-enhanced scanners to model Thom Yorke’s pretty face and provide a headache-inducing visual narrative accompaniment to the song. 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius, 900 times per minute, capturing all of the exterior scenes and wide party shots. Stimulating new ways to explore the godly contours of Thom’s face!! Yippee.

Don’t get me wrong- I fucking love Radiohead. I can specifically recall times and places where I first heard each of their last five records or so, and I’m probably going to be sexually quarantined for slandering my girlfriend’s favorite band. But c’mon already with all the fawning praise. It’s kinda cool looking, but it’s a fuckin laser beam video, and once you get past the novelty it’s pretty boring. Besides, the song’s not even that amazing.

For years, a heated discussion raged on about the atrocities of ruthless internet pirates and the crippling impact their cruelties had on the music business, the artists, the record stores, and even the music itself.

Finally, that ridiculous discussion is being put to rest, as more and more artists and music listeners are educating themselves beyond label rhetoric, and challenging antiquated business models and distribution paradigms.

The record labels are still trying to charge for a product that others (more and more brave souls each day) are providing for cheaper, or free, as convenient as a couple clicks of a mouse button. Even when the record labels timidly test the water by giving a little bit away for free to “see how it goes,” they do it wrong. They do low quality so as not to devalue CDs. Or they only release samples. Or they make you sign up to a mailing list you don’t want spamming you every Tuesday when they try and cram their brand new garbage down everyone’s throats. Their websites and online tools don’t work right. They don’t understand the internet like the kids do, and they don’t have the passion or vision that artists like Trent Reznor has.