One of the last huge acts notably absent from iTunes is also arguably the hottest name in digital music this year thanks to their thinking-outside-the-box approach to distribution, Radiohead. Now the band is said to be in talks with Apple about putting their album In Rainbows on iTunes, a deal that one would have to think would include an option to add their entire back catalog as well.

It’s been widely reported that the main hold-up in getting Radiohead to iTunes is that the band does not want to allow its track to be able to be sold as individual songs, but only as an entire album. This has always struck me as kind of weird since a) Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has his solo album on iTunes and apparently had no issue with the track break-up and b) this is a band that once made a separate music video for every single song on their album OK Computer, and released them all as separate entities.

Apple’s stance is likely that if they let one band sell their music as album-only, others might follow and its the individual tracks that have been iTunes’ bread and butter. However, given the hype around In Rainbows this year I think it might be wise for Apple to give into Radiohead’s demands so they are able to sell the ‘must-have’ digital album of the year.

Radiohead itself will stop selling the album digitally on its site on December 10th, moving the album over to iTunes for sale digitally would be a nice transition.