In Rainbows came at an interesting period of the band as both a creative and commercial force. Radiohead was on a one year period of official hiatus, during which time Thom Yorke had recorded the fantastic solo album The Eraser, and Bodysong would be the first step in establishing Jonny Greenwood as a fantastic movie composer. Within a year of that hiatus they were still making music together, and for the first time they were no longer under the watchful eye of music monolith and Sex Pistol subject material EMI. By all accounts, the sessions went horribly. In a creative decision to not use Nigel Godrich, two different recording periods reaped little rewards. After nearly two years and  a tour to contemplate if they even wanted to remain a band, Radiohead returned to Godrich with what they say were “half formed songs” and begged him to give the band a proper kick up the arse and finish an album.

Those half formed song comments are particularly interesting, as many of the songs that would make it onto In Rainbows had been kicking around as demos or incomplete ideas since the OK Computer days. What would be called “Nude” first featured prominent rock organ. This connection to that album, along with the reoccurrence of 10’s in the album’s release, was so much the case that a fan theory emerged that the two albums were intentionally meant to work together as a mega-album (a theory I don’t believe, but if it were true than this band is full of super-geniuses).

And that release was seen as a large event in its own right. With the band’s clout and online presence, they decided to release the album under a pay-what-want digital download scheme. Now, that came with its own share of reactions, controversies and what now would be called “thinkpieces”. But, being there at the time and at the height of my Radiohead furore, the excitement was tangible. It is obviously not important when judging the content of the album, but it was probably the most excited I have ever been at the release of an album, and it genuinely felt like an event. The only other time I was as excited at a release was with Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly. The other similarity: it paid off. And then some.

In Rainbows is my favourite Radiohead album. As Kid A was the album that changed the way I consumed music it has taken a while to come to that conclusion, but as of right now it is the truth. But why? Well, simply, its the ultimate combination of everything that came before. It is the album that skips along the path that Hail to the Thief forged, which was to successfully combine transcendent electronica and rollocking guitar rock together. When I think about the “Radiohead sound”, In Rainbows is the album I first think of. At the same time, it has a completely different feel to any Radiohead album at that point. Many of the tracks have been described as “seduction songs” but although there is love and heartbreak on this record, combined with images ranging from alien abduction to death, seduction is not the first thing I think about when I listen to it. In Rainbows is the album that gets closest to pure transcendence, the feeling of being of the world and separate from it. And between the move from EMI, the focus on personal song topics and just a generally maturity of the band as a whole (many had become parents in the years between albums), there is just a feel of experienced craftsman who have honed their powers. And even knowing all the behind the scenes drama that produced this record, not a speck of that seems there on the final work. It feels at peace. Content. For lack of a better word: Happy…

“15 Steps” starts In Rainbows with electronic drums as though someone had made percussion out of crinkling paper, moving to a 5/4 march and Thom starting the whole album in a similar off-kilter fashion with a confused “How come I end up where I started?”. After that the track becomes more like a warm embrace, with Jonny and Ed’s bright and clean guitars. It’s even enough joyous at heart to include an example of children screaming “Yeah”. Meanwhile Thom’s lyrics seem to be covering the subject of the artistic block that precede this release, or in terms of the album as “seduction songs”, it ranges from the awkward beginnings of a relationship to its abrupt ends, and the recurring pattern as such (“et cetera, et cetera”). Oh, and it was in the first Twilight movie. That was a thing that happened. You did that but you wouldn’t let Christopher Nolan have “Paranoid Android” for Memento? Your choice, I suppose.

The introductory track ends with synthesisers not far out of an old science fiction movie, which is especially appropriate as the next song is called “Bodysnatchers”. The first half of the song is among the hardest songs in the Radiohead canon, a cavalcade of three guitars all thundering against each other, sounding like the angry paranoia of being trapped in a place you are unable to escape from. Despite the more alien-like title, the song was actually inspired by Victorian seances, Thom blurring the lines between life and death in the process. This feeling culminates in the second half of the song, as the song switches gears, the guitars echo out, and the swinging rhythm becomes much more apparent. I doubt many people to tell that their swaying bodies do not feel possessed at that point.

“Bodysnatching” is rocking, but my favourite mode of Radiohead is  composed of just pure, gorgeous mood. That’s why, of my two favourite songs on the album, one of them is “Nude”. The aforementioned rock-organ tour favourite here is transformed completely into an airy, ethereal marvel with Thom Yorke at the height of his falsetto powers. Despite the beauty of the music, though, there is darkness inside, a DeLillo like worry of the emptiness and superficiality and of modern existence (“you paint yourself white, and fill up with noise”). This is why I think the song  eventually came to the title “Nude”; it strips everything back and reveals the struggle underneath. When Thom sings “You will go to hell”, I don’t think I’ve heard a band sound so heavenly. “Nude”, surprisingly, is the only other Top 40 song Radiohead has released other than “Creep”. Sometimes artistry does pay off.

In the same bright and delicate manner comes “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”. The second part of that sentence I assume comes from the songs construction, of layering guitar arpeggios on top of one another. The second part of that title is much more the feeling that sound creates, like each guitar is a ripple in the ocean and we are caught inside it. The way that Ed and Thom call out sounds like both the sounds of peace and of entrapment, with the song taking the turn for this joint interpretation with the final line “I hit the bottom and escape”. Either way, with the smooth groove from Phil, changing time signatures so slowly you might now even notice, its hard not to get lost in the sea like a weird fish yourself.

The album turns into a somewhat darker sound with “All I Need”, with a heavy lumbering synth line taking up the most prominent position on the track, but the drums, glockenspiel and background strings still manage to make the whole thing warm and inviting (the “white noise” effect of those strings making it feel as though we are encompassed with the music). It’s one of the first overtly sensual tracks on the album, the “seduction songs” comment making sense when describing his feelings around a person as though he is “like an animal trapped in your hot car”. But, like those future tracks, there is a real desperation to every lyric on the song, and the fluctuating opinions that end this song (“It’s all wrong/It’s all right/It’s all wrong”) are as confused as they are relatable.

Probably the most overlooked song on the album, “Faust Arp” carries on the themes of both love, and recurrence. The title seems to say as much, clashing the religious (Faust) with the nihilist (Arp, after the dada artist Jean Arp), but the imagery of falling dominoes and “on again off again” possess within them a conflict and collapse that is impossible to escape from, a feeling that I now releases feels true until the final song of the album (one reason for its complete feeling, as well ass keeping the album at a concise 40 minutes). All of that is contained in an acoustic guitar melody that is among the more folky compositions of the band’s career – a feeling that would extend into the next album – and some lush orchestrals by Jonny Greenwood. If There Will Be Blood didn’t show Jonny’s chops as a composer already, this song would prove he could also do some traditionally beautiful backing.

Just as “Nude” combined proclamations of Hell with something akin the angelic, so to do the vocals at the end of the apocalyptic sounding “Reckoner”, saying that it is “dedicated to all human beings”.  The rhythm of the introduction can sort of be described as “ethereal funk”, the notes of each guitar bouncing off one another and a full metallic percussion creating a real drive to the piece. Along with that continues the imagery of water, with “ripples on a blank shore” demonstrating separation and isolation whilst at the same time the key change, and the swirling guitars from Ed and Jonny as a result, sound as warm as anything else on the album. This must be why the title, In Rainbows, was taken from this song, the colours of which are bright and colourful, but need the combination of sun and water to exist.

This moves on to the two most sensual tracks on the entire album, first with the sublime “House of Cards”, whose quality is more UK version than US Remake. Built around a light yet bouncing guitar beat, upon with the electronic guitar and synthesisers build upon like a breeze until they consume the melody by the track’s end (making a literal sense out of the line “infrastructure will collapse/ from voltage spikes”). The song goes through images of swinging parties, and the house of cards metaphor which shows how all the connections made at this event might stand there now, but is very fragile as a result. It also opens with might be the most direct verse on the whole album, and the one that optimises the feeling of the majority of tracks on this album: “I don’t want to be your friend/ I just want to be your lover/ no matter how it ends/ no matter how it starts”.

While the opening of “House of Cards” might be direct, the lead character of “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” is the most brash and swaggering on In Rainbows, taking the seemingly common topic today in pop music of finding sex at a party scenario and raising it to ethreal, abstract heights. From the Cheshire Cat illusion to the idea of himself as a “closed circuit camera”, the entrapment and surreality of everything before this point finds an almost fitting hope, one that embraces those tendencies in a way that displays an inhuman sense of confidence. Both in the music which swaggers with both acoustic guitars and a rollicking drum roll, and the fact that some “run away” from him. Either way, the Jigsaw shows that completion, stronger than the “House of Cards”, also made of smaller pieces, but a structure that makes a full image and has nothing more left to build from.

And on that completion comes heaven. It also comes what is the most gorgeous song on the whole album, and my favourite track of In Rainbows, with “Videotape”. Built upon one of the most minimal and simplistic structures on any Radiohead song, but too amazing effect, the piano both rotates and builds the same three chord descending riff, feeling like the song is pushing up to the “pearly gates” and each change is a sway of the wings. But as well as building that riff with other sounds, such as the off kilter drumming, it also builds every idea the album has had, from the heavens to  the hells, to the refractions of colours (“and I have it all here in Red Blue Green”) to finding   satisfaction in the end of love and the ability to be alone. The album ends with its most pure sentiment: “Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.” By the end of this 40 minute album, we believe.

At the height of their powers, Radiohead demonstrated with In Rainbows the height of their craft. It learns from every lesson from every other album prior, from the choice of sonic to perfectly shaping the album to a 10 track, 40 minute beauty, to present both best Radiohead and most Radiohead. If there was any album I would use to present the band to newcomers, it would be this one. I probably wouldn’t pick the next album, though. In spite of how much I like it…

What did you think, though?

Radiohead Album Rankings

1. In Rainbows
2. Kid A
3. Amnesiac
4. OK Computer
5. The Bends
6. Hail to the Thief
7. Pablo Honey

B-Side Corner

Many physical copies of In Rainbows came with a second disc full of extra songs, most likely to give incentive to buy the copy when so many people probably had a free version on their computer. Was it worth i-yes, the answer is yes.

• “MK1” – Built up of snippets from “Videotape”. As such it is a beautiful one minute of music, even if it is just transitional material
• “Down is the New Up” – This song combines the beauty of In Rainbows – the leading piano and the swirling synth – with the paranoia found greatly on Hail to the Thief. Particularly with the title, and the Orwell  like contradiction therein, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was meant to make it onto the latter album. I’m not sure a Michael Jackson impression is Thom Yorke’s best mode, though
• “Going Slowly” – An apocalyptic lullaby, this song combines MIDI keyboards with what sounds like tubular bells to create something like a spiritual music box. Like other songs on In Rainbows, there is a tear between escape, love and death.
• “MK2” – Like a Greek Siren was kidnapped by aliens.
• “Last Flowers” – With the kind of mature and gothic imagery this track presents, I think this song to be a good precursor to The King of Limbs. But it’s dark piano also like the mirror track to “We Suck Young Blood”, the victim wanting to be released (also, vampires like virgins, and the flower is often used as a metaphor for such).
• “Up on the Ladder” – Oh look, a Doctor Who reference. If “Down is the New Up”, then a ladder must be pure hell. There is something quite demonic about the bubbling drum loops anyway, and the guitars are are sharp edged than anything in the In Rainbows. The only thing that sounds more deranged is…
• “Bangers + Mash” – This “Banger” of a track, aimed quite pointedly at the British Parliament at the time, and if I had to guess in particular John Prescott. It’s definitely the most out of place in this who era, but it is also maybe the most unhinged track the band have ever done, from the chugging guitar riffs to the militaristic drums. Thom Yorke sounds like he is going to snap, like he really has been poisoned, or the end of the world is truly on its way.
• “4 Minute Warning” – Fitting then how it moves into the final track of the 2 disc, and my personal favourite. Among the most Pink Floyd songs of the bands career, and by the title alone one of the most apocalyptic. Building with one minute of “white noise” like synths, as though the sirens are malfunctioning, the way that Thom Yorke’s initial vocals only come from one channel is incredibly haunting, and it only gets more so from there. The guitars sound like they come from dead amps, and everything sounds contained in the bucker that they all probably find themselves in, stuck underground forever. The perfect parallel to the ending of “Videotape”.