![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In Rainbows is a record of singular ideas, riffs, or effects that every fan can latch onto as instant examples of the band’s brilliance. Within the record’s self-imposed digestibility Radiohead make room by starting songs out with those one or two core elements onto which all the other Lego blocks are added: for the lurcher that is “15 Step” it’s the drum programming, on “Bodysnatchers” it’s the gutter riff, with “Videotape” it’s that serious-as-death piano (heya, “Pyramid Song”). The songs are structured like post-rock, but post-rock where everything’s abridged into pop song formats of four minutes on average, their progression diffused by developing the songs laterally (through the production) rather than linearly (through the songwriting). Edges get rounded off, styles collated and reduced, embellishments de-integrated into clutter and creeping around in the back of the mix waiting for their ephemeral chances to swell just as the tracks peak or hit some minor chord change. By the way, pay whatever you want! Love, Us.” All of them, all at once, boiled down into something comfortable. And best of all, for them? “Important” or not, the album Radiohead made behind their self-drawn curtain and before all this air raid siren-esque industry/indie kafuffle was a classic even before it digitally popped like a cork gun with a flag that might as well have read: “This is our new album it sounds like our other albums. Droves of heads conscripted record labels cursed Radiohead enjoyed tea and a good laugh, doing it all like it was possible with the lazy push of a button. The instant they announced Operation Rainbows the war was over. Radiohead have it so good they know they’re risking nothing. And thousands of like-minded bands can only look up at their gods in envy, knowing full well that if they did the same no one would buy their pricy vinyl packages, and that the majority of their fans would leave a big fat zero in the digital coffer. This renown, in turn, allows them to pull the kind of impressive-yet-overly-lauded stunt that is their In Rainbows release stratagem. All bets here are as hedged as they are final.īut it must be good to be Radiohead, right? A band born to be independent, a band that for years has successfully skirted the boundaries of populism to make strangely populist music that grazes off the many spheres of influence they wander ably between, all the while gaining millions of fans in their wake. ![]()
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