Radiohead’s In Rainbows One of Their Best
I hate writing reviews a day into an album. In many respects its not fair to the artist and in other respects not fair to me. I will say this, however is that there is an interesting aspect to my listening experience. This is not just testing out a new album but there is a buzz surrounding it, a buzz that was not created by the music but the marketing geniuses of Radiohead who have created an interesting way not only not only to distribute music, music that was cheap for the fans, and was distributed to fans, critics, insiders and outsiders all at the same time, without any preconceived notions of what the album was going to sound like. There was no pitchfork or NME or Rolling Stone to guide the listener through this process, the fan had to do that on their own.
While the critics will inevitably have their say in this recording, I can say that I probably gave this album more time than I would have normally given this record if it was released under normal circumstances.
That being said, the album has been growing on me and I can easily forsee this album being in my top ten list at the end of the year. Radiohead have put out a daring, yet beautiful record, maybe not at the level of some of their classics like Ok Computer or Kid A but right up there as one of their best.
What Radiohead has done with In Rainbows is prove once again they are at the forefront of both popularity and cutting edge. While you might not hearing their albums being played all over the radio, the fact is that they have pushed ahead of the grandfathers of the progressive rock, bands like R.E.M. and U2 by challenging the listener, providing something soulful, melodic and daring.
Rock music is more than just a three an a half minute song you might hear on the radio, but an experience, matching a mood, a thought, a feeling and the good albums are not just good today but tomorrow the next day, the next month, the next year, the next century.
And even as I cringed past the opening sequence of 15 Step the first time I listened to it, today I am becoming drawn into the song, as if just like a good book you need to reread the first chapter. Without reviewing each song in their entirety this is what a great album should do anyhow. Repeated listens, repeated awakenings, and feelings strewn across the floor as Thom and Co. rewrite musical history.
In my opinion Nude might be their best “Ballad” if you call it that since “Lucky”. This somber number reintroducing us to everything that makes Radiohead a class band. You see the darkness the despair, the sidewalk in front of you. Part of me feels the sadness and the other part of me sees this as the saddest love song ever written.
“Faust Arp” bekons us back to some of the acoustic classics like Elliott Smith and Nick Drake. The line in the sand can be drawn as far as copying artists but in this case, we hear a Radiohead song saluting these artists more than Xeroxing them.
Possibly the best song on the album, Reckoner, and that is hard to say at this point, builds from a steady dose of percussion into a melodic masterpiece with Thom Yorke’s voice holding everything together.
And lastly, I cannot forget the Ok Computer sounding Jigsaw Falling Into Place, that just wants you to get up on stage and dance like Thom Yorke.
It is very difficult in this age of ours as a band to continue on with the same high quality product album after album. While I have not been too impressed with Radioheads last couple albums, I have to say that they are back at the top of their game.