Record Review 18: Radiohead: In Rainbows

Soooooo... did Radiohead just suddenly change everything? Somehow it seems unlikely but in any case...how cool was that? On October 10th (my birthday) those pretentious English fucks Radiohead released their brand new CD “In Rainbows” on their own web site. Not on iTunes. Not in stores. Just on their site. Other people, bands etc... have released songs on their own site and sometimes given them away but no one has released a whole CD for free on a web site for nothing. Of course it was not really for nothing and that was the kind of cooler part.

You could pay them whatever you wanted. You just filled in the blanks. How ever much you wanted to pay... in pounds of course. Anyway...once you heard about it and logged on it was rather surreal going and typing in an amount and getting to download the songs. You could also agree to pay a lot more for a special boxed set. But why? The exciting thing and the big difference was because this was one of the most popular bands of all time, arguably at the height of their game. So how did they do? Wired magazine said this:

Estimates: Radiohead Made $6-$10 Million on Initial Album Sales
By Eliot Van Buskirk October 19, 2007 | 11:35:45 Am

Thom Yorke's representative told me that the band have "decided not to give out any figures" for sales of Radiohead's In Rainbows album, but that isn't stopping people from making their best guesses based on what little information is available.
The Seminal estimates that Radiohead sold about $10 million-worth of albums as of 10/12, assuming that their source was correct that approximately 1.2 million people downloaded the album from the site, and that the average price paid per album was $8 (we heard that number too, but also heard that a later, more accurate average was $5, which would result in $6 million revenue instead).
Meanwhile, Forbes and BigChampagne revealed that on the first day the album was available, 240K people downloaded it for free over BitTorrent, and that over the following days an average of 100K people per day did the same, for a total of over 500K BitTorrent downloads over the initial week of its release.  It appears that even though the album was available for free on InRainbows.com, plenty of people preferred to use BitTorrent rather than Radiohead's site, which required an email registration (although some of those BitTorrent downloads may have been the result of slowdowns on the ordering site).
We're working on getting some sales numbers through another channel, and will post those if/when we can.

http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/

Wired Magazine cannot be wrong. Can it?
Anyway...what about the CD itself? Radiohead has always been problematic for me. Their “Genius” being somewhat hard for me to get at behind the drum machine and synth heavy tunes. Still, even for me there was no denying “OK Computer” being one of the top indie rock CD’s of all time. Thom Yorke aside from being a pretentious Brit prick has an ear for the tune and through his work has established serious indie cred both for himself and his high school band-mates from Oxfordshire.
“In Rainbows” is in a word... dreamy. I have listened to it about 15 times now ensconced in my office and the same word just keeps suggesting itself. I am still bothered and somewhat distracted by their reliance on electronic effects for percussion and that plays out right away in the opening track 15 step. Something I had not noticed before was how Yorke’s vocals often mimic Ray Davies of the Kinks. I look at that as a good thing. The second song is a rocker with a crunchy guitar called “Body Snatchers” and the Ray Davies thing is reinforced for me pretty dramatically.

The Yorke slows it way...way down with something that sounds like it should be a soundtrack cut because your mind conjures up all kinds of visuals...and then he starts to sing and it is just... a weird song he calls “Nude.” Then the Cd gets really good with a well crafted soft pop tune called “Weird Fishes” and this is classic Yorke for both song style and lyrics:

“I get eaten by the worms
Weird Fishes
Picked over by the worms
Weird Fishes
Weird Fishes
Weird Fishes
I’ll hit the bottom
Hit the bottom and escape
Escape”

That type of shit. But it is compelling and you cannot explain but have to listen. “All I Need” follows up with a plodding synth and drum beat that is very radio ready. It is all symbolism and metaphor with Yorke being... in order

1. The next act waiting in the wings
2. An animal trapped in your hot car
3. A moth
4. In the middle of a picture

Until he starts to tell you as the song winds down...Its all wrong. It’s all right.” No shit.
“Faust Arp” Sounds like a soft Jack White song set to strings. It is really very pretty and Yorkes’ voice is hard to fault. The strings and guitar remind me of a late seventies Fogelberg album and sadly I do not mean that in a big way. In a lot of ways this song like a lot of their songs is just so well put together, so well produced and played that it is just...too pretty.
“Reckoner” has an edgier feel and you really get an appreciation for the brevity of Yorke’s lyrics. There are no sweeping epics. Stories do not get told. He does not take you from point A to point B but each song is like a separate picture hanging in a museum with the words and tune providing color and perspective and sometimes you can even make out a picture. But it is murky. “House of Cards” clocks in as the longest track on the CD at 5:28 and it is just pretty.

“Jigsaw Falling Into Place” other then the drum machine is just an excellent pop song. I like it because i think I can discern what he is singing about which is the bad end of a relationship. That is what music is supposed to be about. Leave the sweeping themes to novelists...that is what daddy says. The end with a dreary little ditty called “Videotape’ which starts with a plodding one finger on one key piano which makes me think Neil Young is about to start singing “A Man Needs A Maid.” But he doesn't. But the song does sound a lot like that tune in style. it is either about dying...or about a great date. I guess they could be the same.

My whole sense of the CD is that is probably more accessible then any of their work since “OK Computer”. perhaps the appearance on Southpark made them take themselves less seriously but with Yorke I doubt it. He is one of those guys that I would be anxious to see what he could do outside the studio sitting at a piano by himself writing and singing all stripped down and unpretentious. There is unfortunately nothing that is uncomplicated by about Yorke and his mates or this CD. You have to listen... and listen again and hope that you can get it...because all the cool kids do. And this album is probably worth the study time.