OK Go, EMI Split Days After Arrival of Video Hit "This Too Shall Pass"

Just two months after OK Go released their new album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky on EMI, the band has announced its split from the label by "mutual agreement." OK Go are creating a new label, Paracadute Recordings, to promote and distribute the disc. "We'd like to thank the people who have worked so hard on our behalf," said OK Go singer Damian Kulash in a statement. "And we'd like to thank our fans for making this choice an easy one for us."

About two weeks before the premiere of their latest conceptual video for "This Too Shall Pass," the band asked to be released from its contract, and EMI agreed. "We realized we wanted to leave EMI in 2002 — it was just a matter of when," Kulash tells Rolling Stone. "It's something of a gift for them to let us go. We're not worth fighting and we're not worth fielding annoying phone calls from all day long."

The split comes just a little over a week after the group unveiled their new video for "This Too Shall Pass," a Rube Goldberg-esque clip that has already racked up 6.8 million views on YouTube in nine days. (Watch it above if you've somehow missed it.) As Rolling Stone previously reported, OK Go were publicly feuding with EMI over the fact that the label's "no embed" policy for music videos was hurting both the band's popularity and finances — they first entered the national spotlight thanks to their treadmill video for "Here It Goes Again." After a series of open letters and op-ed pieces and public statements, EMI finally dropped their "no embed" policy for "This Too Shall Pass."

OK Go and EMI will officially part ways on April 1st, and OK Go will celebrate their independence with a performance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show that night. Two weeks later, OK Go will hit the road in support of Of the Blue Colour with a tour that includes stops at Bonnaroo, Sasquatch! and Bamboozle.

Related Stories:
• OK Go Slap a Tetherball for "This Too Shall Pass": Behind the Clip
• OK Go Explain Viral Video Woes in "New York Times" Op-Ed
• OK Go Struggle With Label's Rules Banning Embedded Video

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

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