Thom Yorke used one of British songwriting’s biggest stages to do two very Thom Yorke things: debut a new song and aim a flamethrower at the industry around it. At the 2026 Ivor Novello Awards in London on Thursday, May 21, Yorke performed a new solo track called “Space Walk” and accepted the Ivors Academy Fellowship with a speech warning that the music business is starving its future.
NME reports that Yorke was honored at the 71st Ivor Novello Awards at London’s Grosvenor House, where Harry Styles introduced him and called Radiohead his favorite band. Yorke then performed “Space Walk” on piano and played a stripped-back acoustic version of Radiohead’s “Jigsaw Falling Into Place,” from In Rainbows.
The new song matters because it may not be a one-off. NME links the performance to Ed O’Brien’s recent claim that Yorke has “got a solo album that’s going to come out later in the year.” That is not a formal album announcement, so treat it with the appropriate caution, but “Space Walk” is now the first public sign of whatever Yorke’s next solo chapter may become.
The speech landed harder than the tease. Yorke dedicated the award to his collaborators, including The Smile drummer Tom Skinner, longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Jonny Greenwood, and artist Stanley Donwood, saying, “When I’m on my own, I go around in circles.” Then he pivoted into a written broadside against major labels, streaming services, catalog speculation, and the industry’s unwillingness to support new artists.
This industry will die and arseholes with it, if all you do is devalue the next generation of artists and their fans. Just remember: without us, you ain’t shit!
It is blunt, but it is not exactly out of character. Yorke has spent decades making music that lives inside systems while trying to wriggle free of them, from Radiohead’s label-era mutations to the In Rainbows pay-what-you-want moment to The Smile’s smaller, twitchier present tense. Hearing him connect artist development, streaming economics, and catalog-hoarding into one argument is less a surprise than a reminder that the anxiety has always been part of the work.
The Ivors also honored George Michael with a posthumous Academy Fellowship, collected by Andrew Ridgeley, and the winners list included Sam Fender, Rosalía, Lola Young, and others. But Yorke’s moment is the one with the longest tail: a new song, a career award, and a warning that the next generation cannot build a catalog if nobody lets them survive long enough to make one.