Amanda Palmer Releases Radiohead Covers Album

It's hard to describe Amanda Palmer because she appears to be in a constant whirl of reinvention. From her roots as a street performer to her beginnings as the singer in cabaret duo

The Dresden Dolls to more recent endeavours in solo music, photography art and current stage project Evelyn Evelyn, in which a pair of conjoined twins rejoice and lament their physical restrictions and the psychological effects that arise, 'versatile' is one word that definitely comes to mind. So do the words 'gutsy', 'creative', 'thoughtful' and 'mesmerising'.

It's undoubted that Amanda Palmer is an act in a million – though she remains sadly underplayed within popular circles. Once discovered, however, she remains a gem in the record collection of many differing tastes. One of the reasons Amanda Palmer is lesser known than she ought to be is her empowered departure from her record label last year. Following a clashing of horns where Palmer demanded to be dropped after finding out that her music video 'Guitar Hero' was not being played on some stations due to her naked stomach's appearance – not because the midriff itself was exposed, but because she was deemed to be 'too fat', which was not only a startling lie but also deeply insulting to the feminist Palmer, the singer waged war against her label and attempted for some time to be freed of her contract. Eventually, she did it – and celebrated accordingly by recording and releasing songs that her label never would have allowed her to, just because she could. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of her sudden cut was losing all forms of advertising that had previously helped sell her albums. Palmer, however, isn't a quitter and is well known for her knack of using the internet to achieve what she wants. Recently, Palmer completed a well-attended tour advertised solely via her accounts on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

The rest was word of mouth. Through the collective voice of her myriad fans, word about Palmer's show spread to thousands and, during the international tour, thousands attended. Palmer was quick to gratefully thank her fans at each show for their hard work in making the tour possible without any other promotion. Now she hopes to do the same with her new album of Radiohead covers, played on the ukulele and sung by Palmer – another thing her label never would have allowed to do. So if you ever do catch one of Palmer's videos on your Sky box it'll be interesting to think to what lengths people will go to distribute their art – and how their fans will help them.

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