These two Wired articles are an excellent read.
Byrne: Previously there'd be a release date, and advance copies would get sent to reviewers months ahead of that.

Yorke: Yeah, and then you'd ring up and say, "Did you like it? What did you think?" And it's three months in advance. And then it'd be, "Would you go do this for this magazine," and maybe this journalist has heard it. All these silly games.

Byrne: That's mainly about the charts, right? About gearing marketing and prerelease to the moment a record comes out so that