By Leigh Novak
Oh my god oh my god oh my god.
I never knew a Monday could get so good.
As part of my daily morning routine – you know, the first hour or so at work devoted to catching up on news, e-mails, and YouTube – I check the unofficial Radiohead website as ritualistically as downing my morning coffee.
I did so recently knowing that any glorious day could be the day that The Announcement would dance off the computer screen with a special glow and the angels would sound the release date of Radiohead’s new album.
See, I’m a Head-head. A little more than a year ago, I wrote a little piece about my Radiohead fandom disclosing all the gory details. At the time, it had been three-and-a-half years since the band’s last studio album and I was practically drooling into my Word document as I wrote, having seen them live on their most recent tour and having additionally been gifted a ton of bootlegs from which I could glean their new material. I was already dreaming about what the next album might sound like.
I also happened to be sitting second row, first balcony at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago when Radiohead debuted “All I Need,” now appearing as Track 5 on their new record. I was practically done with the waiting more than a year ago.
So my heart skipped no less than 10 beats on that fateful day – Monday, October 1st – and my credit card got dinged for about 40 English pounds. Which means I was never faced with the option of what to pay for the album – my download was included in the box set. This fact alone saved me from trying to demonstrate my love by sacrificing a minotaur in their honor.
There is much to discuss about Radiohead and the magnitude of the move they made to release their album at the price tag of the fan – and without a record company. As much as they refuse to admit their decision was an attack on the industry, I find it hard to believe that it didn’t cross their clever minds and even garner a collective smirk from the band anyway.
Radiohead required some balls, a little gall even, to scheme such a scheme. Without the help of a record company or a premeditated release date more than ten days old, Radiohead relied on their musical clout, their pining fans, the richly-developed new material, and some good old-fashioned hype to sell their seventh studio album, In Rainbows.
The fact that the cost is optional is a surefire way to lure new fans and potentially sell thousands more copies of their previous six albums, which do have price tags.
But that’s all I’m going to say about the business end. I don’t even care if In Rainbows was released through 50 Cent’s record company and cost a hundred bucks, exclusively on iTunes. The fact remains beyond the hype: There is finally a new Radiohead album. I was a freshman in college when Hail to the Thief was leaked on the Internet and then later released. I have since graduated, moved across the country, gotten a real job, and turned 23 (in that order). There is finally a new Radiohead album, and pun aside, that is all I need.
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In Rainbows is nearly the perfect melodic offspring of their second and third albums, The Bends and OK Computer. Front man Thom Yorke has acknowledged the pop music that influenced his conceptualization of this record, and the result is likely to reach an even larger larger audience than its predecessors. It is beautifully produced, uncharacteristically lyrically decipherable, and possesses a certain element of catchiness – a word I have otherwise yet to use while discussing Radiohead.
I’ll be completely honest – as a true-blue lifelong Radiohead freak, all this hype is annoying. In Rainbows is a masterpiece and deserves to be heard and loved, but I am selfish when it comes to my bands, and given how difficult it was to score tickets to the last tour (and by “score tickets,” I mean pay irrational amounts of money on eBay for just one), now I will have to compete with even more casual fans for the next hottest ticket in town – and in a larger, sound-sucking venue.
But enough lamenting that my little band is all grown up. Especially because I know they deserve every fan they have.
In Rainbows opens with as much electronica as it will get – a long way from Y2K and Kid A – with “15 Step.” This song was a staple for nearly every tour stop in 2006. It is an energetic track worthy of its lead-off position, easy to move to, yet as the live performance proved, not as easy to clap to.
The high energy continues with “Bodysnatchers” – this time augmented by the distorted riffery of Johnny Greenwood’s guitar.
Then comes “Nude,” the decade-old B-side that finally made the cut – to the swooning delight of us devotees. “Nude” is gorgeous to the core; a simple melody sprinkled with gentle electric guitar accents supporting Yorke’s swirling, divine vocals as they climb up the octaves. And I swear he hits that highest note one glorious half-step higher than he did in concert. No single track since Amnesiac‘s “Pyramid Song” has melted me into a helpless puddle of flesh quite like “Nude” does.
“Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” picks the pace back up with a seemingly growing and weaving guitar, followed suddenly by a section that largely simulates the pleasant silence of being submerged under water before it picks back up to a satisfying finish.
“All I Need” is the next to please, although I tend to feel great disappointment every time the crescendo of piano and vocal chaos cuts out at the end. I want it to keep going, the cymbals to keep crashing, Yorke’s vocals to keep battling between right and wrong.
Track 6 is called “Faust ARP” and is one of two songs I did not already know from live performances. This track intrigues with its crisp acoustic guitar-strums and a vibrant mouthful of lyrics on top of a classical orchestra of strings. To these ears it sounds like Hail to the Thief‘s closing track, “Wolf at the Door” with a Nick Drake-inspired orchestral layer.
The next track – “Reckoner” – is simply put, the shit. This is, by far, the song that is getting most of my attention. Perhaps it’s also because this is the only other song I hadn’t heard in advance (despite being debuted in 2001 in concert), but “Reckoner” is also the most interesting, immaculately-crafted song on the album. Between layers upon layers of dreamy Yorke vocals and a skillfully tender yet prevalent percussion, “Reckoner” moves – no, flows – straight through your ears, into your bloodstream, and courses through your veins for nearly five minutes. That is simply the only way I can describe it.
“House of Cards” comes next and fulfills the crucial role of the third-to-last, come-down track. It is mellow and delightful the whole way through, which amply prepares you for the sheer intensity of the never-quitting track 9, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” This song starts at 10 and builds beyond 11, if you catch my drift.
Finally, “Videotape” closes the album. Opting for a slower-paced, simplistic version of the live song that was my absolute favorite new track in concert, I am afraid that I was let down upon hearing that “Videotape” did not take off into the guitar, vocal and piano climax that I had been awaiting for a year-and-a-half. The live recording of this song from Bonnaroo last summer is the best version of this song available. Nevertheless, the lyrics alone are worth the whole track; especially from the viewpoint of this former AV geek.
* * *
So them’s the long-awaited top 10; glorious, fulfilling, gratifying, effecting, and about-damn-timing! I read something interesting regarding the coincidence of Radiohead announcing the 10/10 release date exactly 10 days in advance, 10 years after OK Computer, and also the fact that In Rainbows has 10 letters in it and 10 tracks. I don’t know what significance that has to the band, if any. But I do know that in full, in order, and with headphones is the best way to listen to In Rainbows. It’s a straight puzzle-piece fitting assortment of songs that make a cohesive whole of a record. And although many moments deserve that extra kick of speaker volume, out of respect I like listening to In Rainbows on 10 – just as the band intended.
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Posted on October 22, 2007