Getting Back to Where They Belong
In Rainbows puts the rock back in Radiohead.By Kriston Capps
October 25, 2007
On “15 Step,” the jazzy opener to Radiohead’s eagerly anticipated In Rainbows, frontman Thom Yorke sings, “How come I end up where I started/ How come I end up where I belong?”
Good question, easy answer.
It’s been 10 years since Radiohead released OK Computer, the album Spin magazine has hailed as the best album release of the past 20 years. And it’s been at least that long since the band has recorded a rock song in 4/4 time. While it wouldn’t be completely fair to say that Radiohead is only now rediscovering their guitars, one does wonder what, say, drummer Phil Selway’s* been doing with his time—the skins have been traded for the drum machine, if even that, for far too long. In a decade-long odyssey, following an arc that’s steered the band away from rock ’n’ roll toward exotic digital landscapes and vintage brass arrangements, Radiohead has returned to the rock ’n’ roll fold.
Much of the buzz surrounding Radiohead’s seventh full-length album has focused on the band’s decision to release In Rainbows over the internet without a specific price. Buyers are able to download it for whatever sum they choose. The gimmick—part marketing scheme, part political statement—certainly has people talking. But nearly lost in the direct-download, pay-what-you-want hubbub is the fact that the album is good—damn good, to be precise. Why so much chatter about bit rates and credit-card transaction minimums?
“Bodysnatchers” is approachable, even understated. That quality carries over to “Faust Arp,” in which Yorke croons over acoustic guitar arpeggios and swelling orchestrals. Here Radiohead sounds like a Harry Nilsson redux—or, rather, given the band’s predilection on In Rainbows for songs about love giving way to paranoia, the 1960s outfit Love, with Yorke playing Arthur Lee to Jonny Greenwood’s Bryan MacLean.
The instrumentation isn’t the only aspect of In Rainbows that sounds more traditional than Radiohead’s last few albums. Yorke also experiments less with his voicebox this time out. The maestro’s clear vocals, bolstered by his gorgeous chant, carry the tracks—rarely rising in temper to a growl. Despite the title (and a breakdown in which he repeats “weird fishes,” as if to himself), “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” is damn near a love song, not tongue-in-cheek at all (“I’d be crazy not to follow/ Follow where you lead/ Your eyes/ They turn me”). And it’s a little discomfiting to hear Yorke singing commonplace, narrative lyrics like, “Just as the drinks arrive/ Just as they play our favorite songs” over straightforward guitar, as on “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” This from the guy who sang backward on Kid A about clones and treefingers, or something.
In Rainbows corresponds with OK Computer (and OK Computer-era recordings) directly and indirectly. The lazy “Reckoner” is a nod to the band’s catalog, specifically to the beach-dreamy “Talk Show Host” from the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet.” And “Nude” is a song that the band has in fact recorded before—it’s an OK Computer-era track that’s been repurposed for In Rainbows.
Compared with other songs on In Rainbows, “Nude” is more rhetorical, typical of the band’s approach to songwriting for OK Computer: “Don’t get any big ideas/ They’re not gonna happen.” Yorke’s vocals are choral and layered; the slight minor swell in the strings on the signature of the song sounds nearly ironic or tossed off—an uncharacteristic tweak of the listener on an album that so pointedly avoids self-indulgence and diversion. It made for a fine B-side back then, but it’s far from self-evident why the track has a home on the new album.
“All That I Need,” on the other hand, is a song whose heart-stopping crescendo compares with any of the band’s best moments. Radiohead has reached for similarly grandiose moments. Hail to the Thief‘s “Sit Down. Stand Up,” for example, builds with similar instrumentation. The searching, wrenching, self-deprecating lyrics on “All That I Need” might well sound like a parody of 90s-era earnestness (“I’m an animal/ Trapped in your hot car”) if Radiohead failed to deliver convincingly. But as looming dread culminates in crashing piano, strings, xylophone, and cymbal, and with Yorke bellowing “It’s all right” and “It’s all wrong,” the song’s conclusion builds into a full-on dies irae.
Even when the talk over the technicalities of In Rainbows‘s release has finally died down, fans will still be talking about “All That I Need”—it might be the best song the band’s ever written. It’s easily the best work they’ve done since “Karma Police.” Funny then, that the band itself had a hand in the distraction.
If there’s any justice, In Rainbows will be recognized as the groundbreaking album it is; not because it’s been marketed in a crafty way, but because it’s as good as anything the band has released in a decade.
Kriston Capps paid ₤5 for a copy of In Rainbows. He writes about arts from Washington, D.C. and blogs at Grammar Police.
*This text has been edited from the original.
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Comments
The drummer (durmmer) is Phil Selway (not Ed O’Neil). You may have his name confused with the guitarist, Ed O’Brien.
— mike c - Oct 25, 06:00 PM - #Thanks for catching that!
— ksteiger - Oct 26, 03:53 PM - #I may be in the minority, but I prefer both the Bends and Hail to the Thief to OK Computer. And I think that Hail in particular managed to synthesize Radiohead’s divergent influences, electronica and more traditional guitar/ keyboards-driven sound very successfully, and more completely than In Rainbows does. There There and 2+2 = 5, as well as Where I End and You Begin and Myxomatosis all rank with the best work they’ve ever done, and sound magnificent live. The new album is solid, but seems a little restrained, although its hard to gauge since this is all stuff they’ve been playing live for the last few (and as much as ten) years, and so it all sounds familiar. So far, Reckioner, Bodysnatcher, and Jigsaw falling Into Place have made the biggest impression. It will be interesting to hear the 8 additional tracks on the deluxe edition due out in LP/CD format in December.
— Bob Giarrusso - Oct 29, 02:39 PM - #Pretty neat article, I don’t want to share my opinion on the album (even though I think it is well constructed), I just thought that there were some errors in the doc. Like the drummer and the song “All That I Need” is actually “All I Need”
— Luke Obermeyer - Oct 29, 05:49 PM - #I’ve had this record playing since it’s been out.
— Eddie - Apr 24, 04:52 PM - #