Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood doesn’t think that the supposed low sound quality of MP3s is something to get worked up about.

We had a few complaints that the MP3s of our last record wasn’t encoded at a high enough rate. Some even suggested we should have used FLACs, but if you even know what one of those is, and have strong opinions on them, you’re already lost to the world of high fidelity and have probably spent far too much money on your speaker-stands.

This conversation with Greenwood is part of a new series by Sasha Frere-Jones’ on the sound quality of recorded music.

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• Radiohead
• Sasha Frere-Jones

Just purchased: Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood soundtrack on the recommendation of Alex Ross in the New Yorker.

Greenwood is better understood as a composer who has crossed over into rock. Trained as a violist, he worked seriously at writing music in his youth, and had just embarked on studies at Oxford Brookes University when, in 1991, Radiohead was signed by the EMI record label. He dropped out of college to join the band on tour.

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• There Will Be Blood