Retail and record label blowhards have been whinging about Radiohead’s decision to let fans choose how much to pay for their new album, In Rainbows. It’s yet another example, they argue, of recorded music being systematically devalued. First Prince gives his new album away with the Mail On Sunday, now this.

Doesn’t it prove the exact opposite, though? So far more Radiohead fans have pre-ordered the £40 discbox than the digital version. Thom Yorke is known to be a fan of the physical artifact – he’s a vinyl junkie, and has always worked closely with artist Stanley Donwood in designing Radiohead’s artwork. Perhaps that was the point all along: to prove to the industry that people will pay for music, if it’s packaged in a compelling way.

Either way, it feels like a ground-breaking manoeuvre, one that will have lasting consequences for the way major artists distribute their music. It got us thinking about some other key staging-posts in music history…

1. Led Zeppelin refuse to release singles in the UK
They rarely did interviews, either. Why bother with promotion when you can be deflowering groupies and bellowing about Tolkien?
Significance: Bands no longer had to pen snappy, three-minute radio hits: they could indulge themselves. ‘70s rock starts here.

2. Levi’s ad spawns a hit
In 1985 Nick Kamen stripped to his pants in a launderette to the sound of Marvin Gaye’s I Heard It Through The Grapevine. The track was subsequently reissued, and topped the charts, initiating a tradition that would one day give us Flat Eric and Babylon Zoo. Cheers, Kamen.
Significance: Radio airplay was no longer the only way to get a song into the charts.

3. EMI pay Mariah Carey $108 million
In 2001 the UK-based label paid La Carey $80 million for a four-album contract – then, just a year later, doled out a further $28 million to terminate it. Carey later declared the saga a “total stress-fest”. EMI bosses presumably used more colourful language.
Significance: Major labels would never again have the resources, or the recklessness, to splurge this much cash.

4. Gnarls Barkley hits Number 1 on downloads alone
Released in April 2006, monster hit Crazy is now officially the most downloaded single ever. After the track’s nine-week run at Number 1, the CD single - once a key driver of record company revenue – suddenly looked like a museum piece. Still, there’s always the USB memory stick, right?
Significance: Took legal downloads mainstream.

5. The Crimea offer entire album as a free download
A bold, forward-thinking step, though the London-based indie oddballs must have been disappointed with the results. Secrets Of The Witching Hour has been downloaded 60,000 times. That’s only 20,000 more than their last album sold at full price.
Significance: Proof that album sales count for less, from a band’s point of view, than touring and merchandise.