FEATURE:
All I Need
Radiohead’s In Rainbows at Fifteen
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I am excited…
IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead’s Thom Yorke performs during the V Festival in Hylands Park on 19th Aug, 2006 in Chelmsford/PHOTO CREDIT: Jo Hale/Getty Images
because, on 10th October, we mark fifteen years of Radiohead’s seventh studio album, In Rainbows. One of the reasons why it was such an important album was that the band made it a pay-what-you-want download initially. I don’t know if any other artist had done this before. In Rainbows was Radiohead’s first release after their recording contract with EMI ended with their album Hail to the Thief (2003). Less political than that album, the gorgeous and near-career-best In Rainbows started life in early-2005. I am not sure why Radiohead decided to work with producer Spike Stent rather than their usual rock and go-to, Nigel Godrich. Eventually common sense was restored but, after some fruitless sessions with Stent, Radiohead toured new material and then reconnected with their long-time producer. In Rainbows blends a range of sounds and genres. There is a mix of the more conventional Rock-based sound and instrumentation of their earliest work, combined with electronics that would come in from Kid A (2000) onward. Unlike anything they had ever released, In Rainbows is one of Radiohead’s most-loved and successful albums. A number one success here and in the U.S., the reviews for In Rainbows were hugely positive. Hail to the Thief got mostly positive feedback, through it wasn’t as unanimous as Radiohead were used to. I am going to come to a couple of reviews for the majestic and all-conquering In Rainbows. There are some features that explore the making of and creation of one of Radiohead’s most important albums.
Rolling Stone published a making of feature about In Rainbows in 2012. I did not realise what a struggle and tough process it was for Radiohead getting an album made. And how frustrating it was at times for them:
“MAKING AN ALBUM has never been easy for Radiohead. “We think too much,” frontman Thom Yorke once told Rolling Stone. But 2007’s In Rainbows may have been their toughest. “It was very difficult in a way we had never experienced before,” says the band’s longtime producer, Nigel Godrich. “The material was great, and we knew it. The difficulty was actually, physically doing it.”
The rushed, contentious sessions for 2003’s Hail to the Thief left Radiohead in no mood to hurry back to the studio – and they’d just ended their 12-year relationship with EMI, meaning no label demanding new material. They spent most of 2004 in limbo; Radiohead’s five members, who began playing together as teens, were now well into their thirties with young children to raise. The band finally got back to work in early 2005, recording on their own and later with producer Mark “Spike” Stent, who’d had hits with Madonna and the Spice Girls. But the sessions – their first in a decade with a producer other than Godrich, a crucial collaborator on the art-rock advances of 1997’s OK Computer and 2000’s Kid A – were a dead end. “Everyone had lost…not interest, but momentum,” Yorke told Rolling Stone. “We’d all stopped to have kids. When we got back into the studio, it was just dead.”
Frustrated, Radiohead hit the road in May 2006, unleashing new tunes like the all-out rock attack “Bodysnatchers” and the tricky, riff-layering fugue “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” at theaters across Europe and the U.S. That fall, the band scrapped their work to date and called Godrich. “Nigel thought we needed an adventure,” guitarist Ed O’Brien told Rolling Stone. The producer dragged them to Tottenham House, a formerly stately Georgian home 45 miles outside their hometown of Oxford. “It was really old and literally crumbling,” Godrich says. “Like a Scooby Doo mansion.”
Camping in trailers beside the weathered hall, the band spent three weeks starting again from scratch. A breathless run through “Bodysnatchers,” cut in Tottenham House’s spacious library, appears virtually untouched on the album – a potent call-back to the guitar-driven charge of Radiohead’s Nineties LPs. They went deeper into that rich, immediate sound during subsequent stints at another country mansion scouted by Godrich and proper studios in London and Oxford. The icily seductive single “Nude,” which the band had attempted unsuccessfully at their first-ever session with Godrich in 1995, suddenly bloomed back to life when bassist Colin Greenwood added a slow-swinging new low end. The iridescent dream ballad “Reckoner,” meanwhile, grew out of a joyful jam: “People all over the house, shaking things and getting this groove going, then chopping it up into little pieces and putting it back together,” Godrich recalls. “It was a lot of fun.”
By the spring of 2007, Radiohead was done with In Rainbows – a lean 10-song set whose warm, pristine production showcased Yorke’s thrilling melodies and the band’s renewed bond. The album’s release was fittingly unorthodox: Fans could buy it online at whatever price they chose. What began in turmoil ended in an act of rebellious reinvention. “It took a lot of time and energy to do this stuff justice, but we got there,” Godrich says. “Between them, it was an opportunity to reconnect. Most people are not really friends with the people they went to school with by this point in their lives, you know? But they have a particular kind of chemistry. Like a family”.
Billboard provided a fitting and superb tenth anniversary tribute to In Rainbows in 2017. An ageless and awe-inspiring album, I hope that there are new tributes and features in the coming weeks. It is clear that there is a lot of love out there for this masterpiece:
“That In Rainbows sounded this way was nearly as unexpected as its method of release. Here was their poppiest, most guitar-based collection of songs in more than a decade, a pronounced swerve away from the chilly electronics and crushing paranoia that had been a hallmark of their sound since OK Computer and swallowed it up completely on Kid A and Amnesiac. In hindsight, the group had already edged back toward guitars on 2003 career overture Hail To The Thief, an album that begins with the hard-rocking “2+2=5” and includes the soaring career highlight “There There” among other six-string excursions. But those were part of a wide-ranging patchwork, whereas this album largely nudged electronics into the background in favor of an upbeat, organic sound, frequently accented by Jonny Greenwood’s orchestral arrangements but firmly grounded in the sound of a guitar-driven rock combo.
More profound than their choice of instruments, though, was the way the band seemed to shake off the global-scale despair and horror that had become their calling card, trading them for a look at the battle between hope and pessimism in Yorke’s own personal life. In Rainbows presented Radiohead with an unprecedented warmth as it found their singer exploring a more mature version of the sad sack from “Creep.” There are bittersweet tracks, like the fatalistic torch song “Nude,” the brisk yet self-loathing schoolyard chant “15 Step” and the clattering power ballad “Reckoner,” a treatise on facing down death. And there are angry tracks, like the powerhouse rock rave-up “Bodysnatchers” and the acoustic-orchestral pocket suite “Faust Arp.” No song ever fully gives into its darker impulses, though. The feeling when the band queues up “15 Step” or rips into “Bodysnatchers” in concert is pure visceral elation, and the lingering memory of “Nude” and “Faust Arp” and especially “Reckoner” is not ache so much as aching beauty.
And then there are the love songs. Most of my favorite tracks on In Rainbows are the ones on which Yorke risks an emotional wipeout by giving himself over to entirely to breathless affection, songs that revel in real or imagined romantic bliss even as they acknowledge life’s bitter realities. “Weird Fishes (Arpeggi)” gorgeously captures the feeling of being possessed by attraction only to be left unsatisfied yet again, its plaintive guitar needlework building to a transcendent climax then careening off a cliff and into the depths. The darkly swooning “All I Need” traces similar paths; as Yorke professes his unrequited desire for a woman who seems to be missing him in plain sight, the song’s remarkably straightforward structure culminates in an overwhelming wave of melancholy.
“House of Cards,” Radiohead’s idea of a sexy slow jam, is probably the tenderest song in Yorke’s catalog. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” details the flickering passion of a barroom flirtation against a locomotive backbeat that very much recalls a bar band. And as In Rainbows draws to a close, the deconstructed piano ballad “Videotape” returns to the themes of fleeting ecstasy and creeping death. The lyrics are basically Yorke putting a morbid twist on Lou Reed, realizing this “perfect day” with a friend or lover will be part of the highlights montage when his life flashes before his eyes.
Many of us have had a similar epiphany while listening to In Rainbows. One last surprise to consider is how well this album holds up 10 years later. It felt like a private gift at first, overflowing with delights but too minor in scale and conservative in style to qualify as the latest Radiohead masterpiece. Yet I return to it more than any other Radiohead album and its track list is as stunning front to back as any of the group’s other elite LPs. For many people a few years younger than me, it’s the first Radiohead album they ever loved. For me and countless others, it was an affirmation that our favorite band in the world was not just operational but still capable of kicking out vital, exhilarating music. A decade down the line, with two more albums in the rearview, it’s becoming increasingly clear that In Rainbows deserves to be in the conversation when discussing Radiohead’s finest work. Revisit it today; it just might surprise you all over again”.
Before coming to the reviews, HAPPY detailed the sound of engineering process of In Rainbows for a feature in 2021. It is true that this album almost finished Radiohead off. It is such a relief that In Rainbows came out so well, and that Radiohead have continued on and made other albums. We are very lucky to have such a consistent, strong and enduring band in our midst:
“Close The The Edge
When reflecting on the legacy of In Rainbows a decade down the track, the consensus seems to be that it near destroyed the band as we know it. Ed O’Brian has been quoted saying that recording the album “almost killed” them, and Godrich admitted to Rolling Stone in 2012 that it “was very difficult in a way [they] had never experienced before.” Thom Yorke, ever candid and self-deprecating, summed up the recording process with four words: “We think too much”.
No song better exemplifies the near breaking point the band teetered on while recording the album than the tender closer, Videotape.
To start, the track is bare, simple, and, in a way, mundane. However, upon the entrance of Phil Selway’s marching drum beat, it is revealed that the piano’s four opening chords are actually syncopated, falling right behind the beat. The band reportedly spent hours arguing where the ‘one’ actually was.
The painstaking process resulted in a tone eerily similar to the haunting, twisted Kid A closer, Motion Picture Soundtrack. But where that song falls into a dreamlike ending close, with cascading harp strings, Videotape breaks apart into nothing.
Phil’s march gives way to an almost drum machine-like hi-hat rhythm, while Jonny introduces a very subtle synth. But as these elements depart, it is Yorke’s piano that closes the album, not really resolving anything so much as pulling everything back to the centre. A grounding of sorts.
The syncopated piano not only closes the album but also underscores the essence of In Rainbows. Despite success having rocketed them to the moon and back, the band was able to return from the brink of having lost all momentum by simply grounding their sound and stripping back to what they are at their core: five madly talented musicians arguing about where the first beat of a song is”.
I am going to round up with a couple of reviews from U.S. sources. The A.V. Club were pretty blown away by In Rainbows when they sat down to review it. I don’t think it is actually humanly possible to dislike or find fault with this album! It is such a remarkable thing:
“Any new Radiohead album pointedly raises an age-old question: Does it make sense to judge a band by what it’s done in the past, or should each release be viewed in a cultural vacuum? For a band in Radiohead’s situation—though there are virtually none—it’s borderline unfair to place recent discs next to the glowing light of The Bends or OK Computer, especially considering that Radiohead has been so mindful about not pandering to its own past, sometimes to the point of frustration. But it’s almost impossible not to compare, because that’s simply how people talk about music: “Is it better than the last one? What does it sound like?”
To answer those questions: It’s about the same, and whether that’s positive or negative depends on how you feel about Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail To The Thief, a trio of albums that, for a band whose capacity for change is well-documented, feel very much of a piece. Add In Rainbows to that grouping. (Throw in Thom Yorke’s electronic solo outing, The Eraser, as well.) This is still the Radiohead that finds straight-ahead pop structures gauche or just plain tired, even though those structures made the group famous, from “Creep” through “Paranoid Android.” Which infuriates those who know how powerful the band can be at its poppiest, and delights those happy to see Radiohead follow whatever experimental paths its collective muse provides.
That said, In Rainbows takes tenuous steps back toward more straightforward territory, though with nothing as obvious as a verse-chorus-verse to speak of. “Bodysnatchers” serves as a pleasant reminder that there’s still a guitar player in the band, capable of playing a lead without a computer-assist, and the chorus (such as it is) offers a nice sing-along: “I’ve no idea what I am talking about!” Similarly, the album-opening “15 Step” sounds like a more reasoned version of “Sit Down, Stand Up” from Hail To The Thief; it’s clicky and busy, with a sense of looming dread that’s nicely mitigated by a chorus of children shouting, “Yeah!”—a rare sense of pure joy in the Radiohead catalog. There are even moments of near-romanticism, a strange injection for a band that’s examined clinical emotional distance so well. “All I Need” uses an ‘80s synth vibe to explore love’s dreadful side, and “House Of Cards” gets almost sexy, though with rumbling guitars signaling darkness on the horizon.
Elsewhere, it’s business as usual—mostly amazing business, to be sure, but never entirely unexpected. Tracks from this album and the three prior could almost be mixed and matched with little interruption. That said, Rainbows ends spectacularly with the unusually gorgeous “Videotape,” a slow-burning, piano-led elegy that death-marches to a syncopated, woodpecker-like drum loop before drifting into silence. The lyrics are some of the most powerful, affecting lines Yorke has written in ages, and the words wouldn’t cut half as deep without such strange, perfect sonic clothing. Maybe Radiohead is making a great leap forward here after all, but just doing it so slowly that it’s difficult to ascertain in real time”.
I am going to finish things up with a review from Entertainment Weekly. They recognised how much speculation and interest there was buzzing around In Rainbows before it was released. Unlike some albums, we were definitely not disappointed at all:
“Perhaps not since The Jazz Singer marked the end of the silent-film era has a popular artwork’s format occasioned as much hubbub as Radiohead’s In Rainbows, which debuted on an untold number of hard drives in the wee hours of Oct. 10. It’s not just that the set is download-only; it’s that the band, now a free agent, is offering a pay-what-you-will policy on the album website (inrainbows.com), accepting the inevitability of file sharing while appealing to the conscience of its sizable and unusually devoted fan base. (A boxed set, including expanded vinyl and CD versions of Rainbows and priced around $80, will be available later this year.) The strategy’s success, despite unconfirmed reports of a million-plus downloads, remains to be seen. However things shake out, it’s making for the music-biz Story of the Year.
So what about the music? Despite some dressing up compared with live versions (fans know many of these songs from concerts), Rainbows‘ 10 tracks are among Radiohead’s most straightforward. The electronic swarms that marked 2000’s Kid A and 2001’s Amnesiac are either gone or folded seamlessly into arrangements. There’s empty space here: On parts of the multifaceted opener ”15 Step” and the quietly unnerving ”Nude,” you hear just drums and an undistorted guitar, with maybe a modest bass line, behind Thom Yorke’s plaintive warbling. Elsewhere, synthesizer washes provide ambient backdrops. And despite a few aggressive bursts — ”Bodysnatchers” is a flailing rocker that has Yorke wailing ”I’m alive!” — Rainbows may be the gentlest, prettiest Radiohead set yet.
That’s not to say the band’s vision has gotten sunny, though the gang of children shouting ”Yay!” in the middle of ”15 Step” might give that impression. Many songs are about love and desire, double-edged swords by definition. And the themes cut both ways. ”I love you, but enough is enough,” Yorke murmurs on the delicate ”Faust Arp,” which, like ”Nude,” might refer to an artist’s relationship to his fans as well as to a lover. The ballad ”House of Cards” is that old soul-man trope, the adultery invitation — though in Yorke’s hands it becomes something more complicated, as he intones the word denial (in a strange echo of ”Smells Like Teen Spirit”) amid brooding strings and rapturous falsetto.
Some critics have geekily quibbled over the fidelity of the MP3 format, which is slightly less than CD quality. But through decent earbuds on an iPod, or on a burned disc in my car, Rainbows sounds great, well worth the $10 I chose to pay for it. Using the full musical and emotional spectra to conjure breathtaking beauty, the collection is well named. It may have arrived via computer, but the vision is timeless. A”.
One of the great albums of the ‘00s, the supreme and utterly amazing In Rainbows is fifteen on 10th October. It is another beautiful evolution from Radiohead. If you had to rank their studio albums, you’d put In Rainbows up there with The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A as their absolute finest. Those four albums are all vastly different. Testament to the incredible curiosity, seamless range, and incredible talent of the band! Fifteen years later, I am discovering new treats and colours on In Rainbows. From the manic rush of Bodysnatchers to the gorgeous and swimming Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, through to the heartbreaking Videotape, this is a band who had nothing to prove – they seemed to prove and underline that they are the greatest band of their generation! I don’t think, being its fifteenth, there will be an anniversary release. We may need to wait another five years to get an expanded edition. Go and get In Rainbows on vinyl. I would love to see it reissued in different rainbow colours; maybe Radiohead launching some sort of innovation like the pay-what-you-want they introduced back in 2007. For those who have not heard In Rainbows for a while (or at all), you definitely need to put it on and explore every single track. This is a phenomenal album that you need to…
GIVE your full attention and time.