Radiohead - In Rainbows

Ann Powers has a nice take up. (My one '?' moment is that Pearl Jam is about the LAST band I would have thought of when it comes "Bodysnatchers" but that's the personal pantheon for you, to use her v. good phrase.)

I'm sure it's been mentioned (what hasn't in the last 60 hours) but I love the melding between initial listener reactions and more objective critical reviews that this album is forcing right now. Everything bleeding together at once, with an unprecedented lack of distinction. There's gotta be some frustrated writers (and their editors) out there.

Ahhh... I wondered when thebacklash would start creeping in.

My feelings exactly – the tension between inchoate thoughts and a fully considered review fit for publication, plus a natural instinct to compete.

Ann Powers OTM with the Prince comparison.

The idea that In Rainbows doesn't have a consistent sonic mood is fucking ludicrous.

BUT I REQUIRE ALL MY ALBUMS TO HAVE CONSISTENT SONIC MOODS OR BE EASILY RATE-ABLE AMONGST SAID ARTISTS ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY

jesus christ i feel sorry for radiohaed

me too

arggh i keep going back and forth with this one on every listen. i'll just say it's a decent enough Radiohead album and i'm quite happy with it.

15 Steps is kind of frustrating me at the moment, the first 40 seconds or so are rubbish (I put this down to Thom's annoying yelping vocal performance, too Eraser for me) but from then on it gets better and better. Also children shouting or whatever, that song is all about the bass - Colin plays a fucking blinder.

Yes, once that bass comes is in it is ON

15 Steps is kind of frustrating me at the moment, the first 40 seconds or so are rubbish (I put this down to Thom's annoying yelping vocal performance, too Eraser for me) but from then on it gets better and better.

i agree with all of this.

^me too. It's annoying, because everytime I play In Rainbows for someone else(all two times, so far), I can't stop myself from saying "...actually, the first minute is actually the worst on the album", and so on.

It's going to be fun to get the other disc and construct an improved tracklist and order.

^I've been having the same experience! I'm all "hold on! It gets really amazing! Just wait! No, seriously, this is way different than his solo album!"

Actually, I always say actually way too much in real life, actually.

God, I love that opening. Y'all are freaks. (I love you all too.)

i'm liking this more with each listen. it is slowly revealing itself. the production on thom's voice is beautiful. all these little touches like when, halfway through 15 steps, his voice seems to briefly escape the rigid machinery of the song, curling in dusty echoes to the horizon, only to be brought back into the panic. also how nude's intro and backing is like ghosts being sucked into heaven. and more or less every other moment. like when all i need finally breaks. it will be cool to eventually sing the words "weird fishes" alongside 10000 other concertgoers. anyways, right now my lights are off and this is a silk cocoon and it is my favorite radiohead.

Yea you're right, it's pretty much just on the last part of "National Anthem" when all those horns start going crazy, and that is all. Sorry. I just wish Radiohead explored that stuff more.

-- Mark Clemente, Friday, 12 October 2007 13:58

I agree! I'd love to have Joe McPhee show up and squawk all over (say) Weird Fishes.

I think this is the most I've enjoyed a radiohead album since, well, forever. What stands out for me after like the 13th or 14th play is the incredible care with which the album, as an album, was constructed. Each song seems a bit like a different flavor of sorbet on a tasting menu; you take a bite and it lingers around on your tongue for the first minute and a half or so, not really doing much besides creating an overwhelming, intense sensation of its particular "flavorness"; and then around the 2 minute mark the flavor changes a little bit, does something weird, which alters the sense of the overall flavor but remains decidedly "itself". And then the song ends and you take a bite of the next flavor on the plate. So different sonic sensations are offered in bite size portions, really, as long as you take really slow, sensuous kind of bites; but some bites take longer to reveal all their subtleties than others. And each flavor is sequenced really carefully with all the rest to intensify the sensation of having these 10 unique, individual 'essences' of songs. I think the only time we really have similar songs back to back is like with Faust Arp moving into Reckoner, and that is really effective as a way of kind of ramping up into the climax which reckoner kind of is.

In fact I think these are kind of the 'essences' of all the songs presented here, the most unique, strange, different-from-everything-next-to-them versions that could have been created. At first I hated the Videotape and All I Need on this album, because they were really gorgeous songs with such amazing movement and catharsis in the versions we have from tour bootlegs. But I realize now that these songs, as well as Arpeggi and House of Cards, were changed--flattened out, perhaps--in order to not give us any resolution within themselves; rather, they have to fit in the context of the album. And emotional satisfaction is experienced over the course of the Album, NOT on a song by song basis. I can't imagine really enjoying any of these except like Nude and Jigsaw on their own, outside of the album. The comparisons to HTTF and Amnesiac are, for that reason, I think really off the mark; those two albums are collections of songs, which may or may not cohere into an album; but this is an album, which just happens to be made of songs.
Thus, I think most of the experimentation that is going on here is about pushing four minute songs to be as intense and peculiar as they can possibly be and still fit the mood. In a sense these aren't pop songs anymore, in that they often don't give the pleasures of a pop song, or at least those pleasures: movement, climax, resolution etc., are really diluted, in favor of a different goal. I could say more about this later but I've already typed too much. Anyways I think, for 2007, I like this about the same as Sound of Silver which is its diametrical opposite in a lot of ways, but not in the way that both albums create grooves and then try to more or less sustain them over the course of individual tracks before a new track comes in and makes a different mood or groove. Theres nothing nearly as good as All My Friends on In Rainbows, and of course nothing I can really dance to or spin out etc. But so far I've listened to the entire Radiohead album more often in three days than the LCD Soundsystem in like 8 months anyways.

xpost wonderful comment about the silk cocoon etc, thats exactly where I've been for like the last 2 days.

what the fuck are you on about sorbet

sensuous bites of radiohead

you can't dance to it? i've been dancing to "jigsaw" and "bodysnatchers" all day.

I love the bit in "bodysnatchers" just before the "has the light gone out" bit where it sounds like the bottom falling out and there's this sudden... space.

xxpost yer right it does look ridiculous when you say it like that. its kinda like the album: makes more sense in its context.

the context being my head

nude sounds like elbow. i like this record.

Glad someone posted that rateyourmusic link way above...got the album artwork now. The album is great upon first few listens.

So far, we have Frusciante playing guitar with Mark Hollis alongside Tusk-era Fleetwood Mac and a smattering of Pearl Jam and the Eagles, with elements of Dusty Springfield, Neu, Wolfmother, Nick Drake and Peaches. This must be either awesome or a truly horrible mess!

(Actually, I dl'ed it and am still trying to absorb it here. First impressions: yes, most like Amnesiac which is good -- for me -- since the latter is my favourite Radiohead album. But all these comparisons get confusing, so I'll share impressions on its own terms later.)

i think it's the most confident sounding and least dark, anxiety-ridden album they've done. i have no idea where i'd place it in their oeuvre but i'm just really enjoying listening to it, really.

what has happened to ilm? around 2001 i was one of the few who defended "amnesiac" (besides john and melissa). i hadn't cared about them before. "hail to the thief" i liked too, don't remember what ilm thought. now they release an album which i find as uninteresting as everything pre-amnesiac and everybody (except bimble) is totally nuts about it. this reaction baffles me. or maybe it doesn't.

Don't feel alone, Alex in Mainhattan. My good friend Mr. Odd (who has neglected to post his opinion here) said he feels exactly as bored with this album as I do and that he has another friend who feels the same.

Who's to say it isn't somehow Coldplay's fault that they've sunk so low? Just a theory...

hehehe ouch Bimble. (actually, Faust Arp kinda sounded a little Coldplay to me, more so than Nick Drake.)

15 Steps is kind of frustrating me at the moment, the first 40 seconds or so are rubbish (I put this down to Thom's annoying yelping vocal performance, too Eraser for me) but from then on it gets better and better. Also children shouting or whatever, that song is all about the bass - Colin plays a fucking blinder.

-- Matt DC, Friday, 12 October 2007 23:05 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

OTM. The first 15 seconds are what initially stabbed me in the heart. I felt like a helium balloon that had been burst. Those 15 seconds are shit. They instantly make you think "Oh god, they're trying to be electronicky but instead it's just bad industrial music". Then this guitar line comes along and you're like "Oh?" and it builds and builds and builds. It only sounds like HTTT because of those first 15 seconds which throw your entire conception of the album. In reality it's a proper futuristic album. Remember when we were asking what music we could go back in time to 1994 and say "I am from the future, and I have the music to prove it" and no one could come up with very much? Ladies and gents, no one in 1994 could have made "In Rainbows". They could have made "Kid A" I reckon. "I Care Because You Do" and "Tri Repetae" aren't far off that record, but this is something else entirely.

Weird, but I think of Paul McCartney when I listen to Faust Arp.

the 13th or 14th play is the incredible care with which the album, as an album, was constructed.

100% OTM. Headphoning listening is required.

The end of Nude.

You notice I'm drunk? It's tragic.

Tell me: I'm on my second listen and this sounds great - I mean like Bjork or Scott Walker - and I'm just wondering if it sounds that way after, say, the seventh listen.

It sounds like Radiohead after the seventh listen.

Wrote a review:
(hope you don't mind the spam.)

How long has it been since an album release was an event? When In Rainbows, the new Radiohead album, launched I received delirious text messages from long forgotten people known by my phone only as [first name] Radiohead, random, mostly strangers, many met on the last Radiohead tour all sharing a long lost feeling. If you're of a certain youth- say, post Napster- you may have never have done this but I remember queueing with friends at midnight and rushing home for the first listen knowing that everyone else was also hearing this for the first time. By releasing their album online, at whatever price you wish to pay for it and only ten days after it was announced, Radiohead have recaptured this moment and neatly side stepped the promo and marketing bullshit. There are no interviews, no launch parties and no television advertisements but plenty of hype. Hype that has been left unshaped by the critics who are all without advance copies. Listeners are left entirely to make up their own mind. I have mine, In Rainbows is Radiohead's best album.

The dark clouds of label life have cleared and a gay Radiohead is shown In Rainbows. At just ten tracks and a little over forty minutes, with purposeful sequencing, this asks to be listened to as an album rather than a collection of songs. In Rainbows has none of the patience-trying sprawl of their last album, 2003's Hail to the Thief, which felt like a disjointed Best of composed entirely of new songs. It is far more cohesive, akin to Kid A, but paradoxically it is also Radiohead's least electronic album since The Bends. The vast majority of the percussion is live and many songs are built upon sparse piano or acoustic guitar with the other instruments flowing organically in and out of the song. On last year's solo album, The Eraser, Thom Yorke discovered how not to hide his voice under the music, or, when that technique did not suit the song, distort the humanity out the performance. Evolving from that, his vocals, especially on the upbeat tracks, have a comfortable swagger that I've never heard from him before and which is reflected by the rest of the band.

The album opens with a false start, glitchy drums that sound like a sped up slow jam -a Timbaland technique thrown into 5/4- and Thom sings 'How come I end up where I started' to begin 15 Step, which can be read as loose parable of Radiohead's career only with samples of happy school children cheering and the dismissive, 'You used to be alright, What happened? Etcetera etcetera, Facts for whatever'. Bodysnatchers is reminiscent of The National Anthem with its heavy fuzzed-out bass. Thom snarls, 'I have no idea what you are talking about' and the track builds to create a breathless conclusion to the one two punch of using the album's most straight up rock songs as openers. A long breath and then a beat, that, I imagine, sounds like the last thing you hear before hypnotherapy, begins Nude whose gentle, swelling strings make you feel like you're floating down the Liffey. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi follows next and, rather literally, sounds like arpeggios mixed underwater, slightly outstaying its welcome. All I Need, one of the album's standouts, completes the first half and is anchored by a subtle sythn (one of the few) bass and the despairing romance of , 'I am a moth, who just wants to share your light'. A track sure to launch a thousand mix tapes at people too cute to speak to in person.

The second half of the album begins with the playful, 'One two three four, Wakey wakey' of Faust Arp which sounds absolutely nothing like the krautrock band. It is built around an intricate acoustic guitar and a insanely beautiful melody reminiscent of the The Beatles' finest. Thom slyly name drops 'Blackbird'. The next song, Reckoner, is set to be the most discussed among nerdy musical types. Drums hard right, tamberine hard left, which could be equally Motown as In a Silent Way era Miles Davis, yet Reckoner sounds more like something from Talk Talk's Laughing Stock. I can not get my head around it but I think it is brilliant. 'House of Cards' is an unlikely Radiohead song about sex and infidelity opening with the incongruous line, 'I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover' over a deep southern-soul groove filtered through dub; all elongated sounds and echoy vocals that transform what is a very simple song into something much more. Jigsaw Out of Place is the most accessible song on the album and sure single material. You can dance, or as Radiohead fans tend to do, nod your head to this shameless crowd-bait. Videotape is the piano and vocal closer. Very beautiful and filling its purpose adequately in much the same way as Motion Picture Soundtrack or True Love Waits but will be a love it or hate it affair.

At this price there is no reason not to listen to In Rainbows. If you are the eager for more, and you should be, the on sale only from Radiohead's website discbox ships by the 3rd of December and includes the album, in much higher fidelity, a second disc consisting of eight bonus tracks recorded during the same sessions and a bunch of other stuff. Will the bonus disc be the Amnesiac to this Kid A, ie. a less cohesive collection of arguably greater songs? Stay detuned.

Somehow I missed dude's sarcasm. Long day.
^^^

Also children shouting or whatever, that song is all about the bass - Colin plays a fucking blinder.

otm. I didn't even notice the children cheering until the third listen. On headphones that bass is so badass, surely his best since Airbag.

didn't think i was really getting into this album much. then WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI popped up in a dream last night.

Ned, there's no AMG review yet. Pls advise.

Still no reaction from geir?

House of Cards sounds like a Grizzly Bear record.

It sounds like Radiohead after the seventh listen.

-- Cosmo Vitelli, Saturday, October 13, 2007 7:03 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I want this enshrined in a plaque, thanks. This is the Nobel peace price (I mean prize) of this thread. Let's hang it on the wall and be done with it.

17 times and it still sounds remarkably like Radiohead, to wit.

Do us a favor Radiohead. Tell us you're going to e-mail codes to everybody who purchased "In Rainbows" online so they can get the bonus material included on the CD FOR FREE! And then stop talking shit about files. CDs sound bad. I'm surprised you're even selling them. The sampling rate is so LOW! Why not make everybody buy an SACD player, to hear your music right. Or, buy turntables to hear the infinitely superior vinyl. You think you're doing something innovative, but it just looks like you've got contempt for your audience. I never fire up the big rig anymore. I LOVE my iPod. Files rule. Get OVER IT!

Lefsetz chimes in on the idea that Radiohead will be selling a cd version in the stores soon with extra tracks. http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

BUT I REQUIRE ALL MY ALBUMS TO ... BE EASILY RATE-ABLE AMONGST SAID ARTISTS ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY

Wow, dudes are going crazy with the comparison stuff.

Mos def:

OK Computer > In Rainbows > Kid A > Hail To The Thief > The Bends > Amnesiac > Pablo Honey *

* Subject to change by 2012