Radiohead In Rainbows
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. ' Released: 14 January 2008.
' Released: 31 March 2008. ' / ' Released: May 2008. ' Released: 23 September 2008. ' Released: 5 January 2009 (promotional) In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by English band, self-released on 10 October 2007 as a. It was followed by a physical release internationally by on 3 December 2007 and in the on 1 January 2008. It was Radiohead's first release after their recording contract with ended with their previous album (2003).
Radiohead worked on In Rainbows for more than two years, beginning in early 2005. In mid-2006, after their initial recording sessions with new producer proved fruitless, the band toured Europe and North America performing In Rainbows material before re-enlisting their longtime producer. The album is more personal than previous Radiohead albums, with singer describing most of the songs as his versions of 'seduction songs'. Radiohead incorporated a variety of musical styles and instruments, using, and the.
The album's pay-what-you-want release, the first for a major act, made headlines around the world and sparked debate about implications for the music industry. The physical release debuted at #1 on the and the chart.
By October 2008, In Rainbows had sold over three million copies worldwide. It received critical acclaim and was ranked one of the best albums of 2007, and the decade, by many publications. It won two for and. In 2012, placed In Rainbows at number 336 on their updated list of the.
Contents. Background In 2004, after finishing the world tour in support of their sixth studio album (2003), Radiohead went on hiatus. As Hail to the Thief was the last album released on Radiohead's six-album contract with, the band had no contractual obligation to release new material. Drummer said: 'It was definitely time to take a break. There was still a desire amongst us to make music, but also a realisation that other aspects of our lives were being neglected. And we'd come to the end of our contract, which gives you a natural point to look back over at what you've achieved as a band.'
According to the New York Times, in 2006, Radiohead was 'by far the world's most popular unsigned band.' Singer and songwriter worked on his first solo album, (2006), and multi-instrumentalist composed his first soundtracks, for (2004) and (2007).
Recording In March 2005, Radiohead began writing and recording new music in their Oxfordshire studio. In an effort to 'get out of the comfort zone', they decided against involving producer, with whom they had recorded five albums.
At the Ether Festival in July 2005, Greenwood and Yorke performed a version of the future In Rainbows track 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' with the orchestra and the. Regular recording sessions began in August 2005, with Radiohead updating fans on their progress intermittently on their new,. The sessions were slow, and the band struggled to regain confidence; according to Yorke, 'we spent a long time in the studio just not going anywhere, wasting our time, and that was really, really frustrating.' Guitarist said the band considered splitting up, but kept working 'because when you got beyond all the shit and the bollocks, the core of these songs were really good.' They attributed their slow progress to a lack of momentum after their break and the lack of deadline and producer. Radiohead performing live at the Greek Theatre, Berkeley, California, during their 2006 tour. Radiohead used the tour to test songs later recorded for In Rainbows.
In December 2005, Radiohead asked producer, who had worked with artists including and, to help them work through their material. O'Brien told: 'Spike listened to the stuff we'd been self-producing. These weren't demos, they’d been recorded in proper studios, and he said, 'The sounds aren't good enough.' ' The collaboration with Stent was unsuccessful and ended in April 2006. In an effort to break the deadlock, Radiohead decided to tour for the first time since 2004; according to Yorke, 'We basically had all these half-formed songs, and we just had to get it together. Lego rcx 1.0 manual. And rather than it being a nightmare, it was really, really good fun, because suddenly everyone is being spontaneous and no one's self-conscious because you're not in the studio. It felt like being 16 again.'
In May and June 2006, Radiohead toured major cities in Europe and North America and returned to Europe for several festivals in August, performing many new songs. After the tour, Radiohead re-enlisted Godrich, who, according to Yorke, 'gave us a walloping kick up the arse'. In October 2006, recording started at in, a scouted by Godrich where Radiohead worked for three weeks. The band members lived in caravans, as the building was in a state of disrepair; Yorke described it as 'derelict in the stricter sense of the word, where there's holes in the floor, rain coming through the ceilings, half the window panes missing. There were places you just basically didn't go. It definitely had an effect. It had some pretty strange vibes.'
The sessions were productive, and the band recorded ' and '. In October, Yorke wrote on Dead Air Space that Radiohead had 'started the record properly now. Starting to get somewhere I think. In December 2006, further sessions took place at, and Godrich's Hospital Studios in, where the band recorded 'Videotape' and '.
In January 2007, Radiohead resumed recording in their Oxfordshire studio and started to post photos, lyrics, videos and samples of new songs on Dead Air Space. In June, having wrapped up recording, Godrich posted clips of songs on Dead Air Space. Not including 'Last Flowers', which Yorke recorded in the Eraser sessions, the In Rainbows sessions produced 16 songs. After the 56-minute, 14-track Hail to the Thief, Radiohead wanted their seventh album to be concise; they settled on ten songs, saving a further six tracks (not counting short instrumentals) for the limited edition 'discbox' release.
The album was by in July 2007 at Gateway Mastering, New York City. Music and lyrics. In 'House of Cards', Radiohead turns toward more traditional love ballads, while still retaining their electronic edge. Problems playing these files? In Rainbows has been described as featuring, and throughout. It features many tracks debuted on Radiohead's 2006 tour, including '15 Step', 'Bodysnatchers', 'All I Need', 'Videotape', 'Arpeggi' (retitled 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi') and 'Open Pick' (retitled 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place').
Radiohead first performed 'Nude' during the OK Computer world tour in a different arrangement. The band performed a song with the working title of 'Reckoner' in 2001; working on the song in the In Rainbows sessions, they abandoned the original material and created a new song with the same name. Yorke released the song originally known as 'Reckoner' as a solo single, ', in 2009. On the opening track '15 Step', the band enlisted the help of a group of children from the Matrix Music School & Arts Centre in. Colin Greenwood and Godrich originally set out to record handclaps for the song, but when the clapping proved 'not quite good enough', they decided to record the children cheering instead. 'Bodysnatchers', a song Yorke described as sounding like and ' meets dodgy ', was recorded when he was in a period of ' '. On 'All I Need', Jonny Greenwood wanted to recapture the generated by a band playing loudly in a room, a sound which never occurs in the studio.
His solution was to have a play every note of the, blanketing the. Yorke described the process of composing 'Videotape' as 'absolute agony', stating that the song 'went through every possible parameter'. One day, Yorke left the studio, returning to find that Godrich and Jonny Greenwood had stripped the song down to the version found on the album, a minimal piano ballad. Yorke said that the album's lyrics are based on 'that anonymous fear thing, sitting in traffic, thinking, 'I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something else'. It's similar to in a way. It's much more terrifying.'
At the same time, Yorke felt 'there's very little anger in In Rainbows. It's in no way political, or, at least, doesn't feel that way to me.
It very much explores the ideas of transience. It starts in one place and ends somewhere completely different.' In another interview, Yorke said the album was 'about the fucking panic of realising you're going to die! And that any time soon I could possibly have a heart attack when I next go for a run.' Described the lyrics as 'universal. There wasn't a political agenda.
It's being human.' The song 'Bodysnatchers' is inspired by, the 1972 novel and Yorke's feeling of 'your physical consciousness trapped without being able to connect fully with anything else.' 'Jigsaw Falling into Place' is about a set of observations and different experiences, partly of the chaos witnessed by Yorke when he used to go out on the weekend in Oxford. Yorke said 'The lyrics are quite caustic—the idea of 'before you're comatose' or whatever, drinking yourself into oblivion and getting fucked-up to forget.
there is partly this elation. But there's a much darker side.'
Artwork The In Rainbows artwork was designed by, who has worked with Yorke to design Radiohead's album art since 1994. Donwood worked in the studio as Radiohead were working on the album, which allowed the mood of the music to be conveyed in the album artwork, and regularly put up images in the studio and on the studio computer for the band to interact with and comment on. He also posted images daily on the Radiohead website, though none were used in the final album artwork. Donwood experimented with, putting prints into acid baths and throwing wax at paper, creating images influenced by space photography. He originally planned to explore suburban life, but realised it did not fit the album, saying 'it's a sensual record and I wanted to do something more organic.' Describing the album cover, Donwood said: 'It's very colourful—I've finally embraced colour!
It's a but it is very toxic, it's more like the sort of one you'd see in a puddle.' The band decided not to release the cover for the digital release, preferring to hold it back for the physical release. The 'discbox' release of the album includes a booklet containing additional artwork by Donwood. Release As Radiohead's six-album contract with ended after the 2003 release of Hail to the Thief, Radiohead recorded In Rainbows without a record contract. In 2005, Yorke told: 'I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one.
And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'Fuck you' to this decaying business model.' In August 2007, as Radiohead were finishing In Rainbows, EMI was acquired by the firm in a US$6.4 billion (£4.7 billion) public-to-private buyout transaction. Radiohead were negotiating a new contract with EMI, but were critical of the new management and no agreement was reached. O'Brien said: 'It was really sad to leave all the people we'd worked with. But Terra Firma don't understand the music industry.' On 1 October 2007, Jonny Greenwood announced Radiohead's seventh album on Radiohead's blog, Dead Air Space, writing: 'Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days; we've called it In Rainbows.'
The post contained a link to inrainbows.com, where users could pre-order an MP3 version of the album for any amount they wanted, including £0—a landmark use of the model for music sales. Colin Greenwood explained the internet release as a way of avoiding the 'regulated playlists' and 'straitened formats' of radio and TV, ensuring listeners around the world would experience the music at the same time, and preventing leaks in advance of a physical release.
In a interview with, Yorke said: We were trying to avoid that whole game of who gets in first with the reviews. These days there's so much paper to fill, or digital paper to fill, that whoever writes the first few things gets cut and pasted. Whoever gets their opinion in first has all that power. Especially for a band like ours, it's totally the luck of the draw whether that person is into us or not. It just seems wildly unfair, I think. Reaction The pay-what-you-want release, the first for a major act, made headlines worldwide and sparked debate about the implications for the music industry.
According to, the release was 'hailed as a revolution in the way major bands sell their music', and the media's reaction was 'almost overwhelmingly positive'. Time called it 'easily the most important release in the recent history of the music business' and of wrote that 'for the beleaguered recording business Radiohead has put in motion the most audacious experiment in years.' The wrote that 'the music world seemed to judder several rimes off its axis', and praised the fact that everyone, from fans to critics, had access to the album at the same time on release day: 'the kind of moment of togetherness you don’t get very often.' Singer of praised Radiohead as 'courageous and imaginative in trying to figure out some new relationship with their audience'.
The release also drew criticism. Of, who independently released his sixth album under a licence the following year, thought it did not go far enough, calling it 'very much a bait and switch, to get you to pay for a MySpace-quality stream as a way to promote a very traditional record sale.' Singer called it 'arrogant', saying: 'Radiohead have millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who haven't done as well. You don't choose how to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?'
In the, journalist wrote: 'Spare a thought for the thousands upon thousands of bands and singers who, nowhere near Radiohead's levels of fame and fortune, now have pretty much no chance of ever making a living from their music.' Of told the Guardian the release 'seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn't catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don’t sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever.' Radiohead's managers defended the release as 'a solution for Radiohead, not the industry', and doubted 'it would work the same way for Radiohead ever again.' Radiohead did not repeat the pay-what-you-want model for subsequent releases. In February 2013, Yorke told the Guardian that though Radiohead had hoped to subvert the corporate music industry with In Rainbows, he feared they had instead played into the hands of content providers such as and: 'They have to keep commodifying things to keep the share price up, but in doing so they have made all content, including music and newspapers, worthless, in order to make their billions. And this is what we want?'
Formats and distribution For the In Rainbows download release, Radiohead employed the network provider to bypass public internet, using a less-trafficked private network. The download was packaged as a file containing the album's ten tracks encoded in a 160 format. The staggered online release began at about 5:30am on 10 October 2007. On 10 December, the download was removed. Fans could also order a limited 'discbox' edition from inrainbows.com, containing the album on CD and two 12' heavyweight vinyl records with artwork and lyric booklets, plus an with eight additional tracks, digital photos and artwork, packaged in a hardcover book and.
The 'discbox' edition was shipped on 3 December 2007. In June 2009, Radiohead made the second In Rainbows disc available for download on their website for £6. Radiohead ruled out an internet-only distribution for fear that some fans would not have internet access. In Rainbows was released on CD and vinyl in Japan by on 26 December 2007, in Australia on 29 December 2007 by, and in the United States and Canada on 1 January 2008 by imprint and / respectively. Elsewhere, the album was released on 31 December 2007 by independent record label. The CD release came in a cardboard package containing the CD, lyric booklet, and several stickers that could be placed on the blank to create cover art. In Rainbows was the first Radiohead album available for download in several digital music stores, such as the and.
On 10 June 2016, it was added to the free streaming service. Radiohead retained ownership of the and for In Rainbows. The download and 'discbox' versions of the album were self-released; for the physical release, Radiohead licensed the music to record labels. Licensing agreements for all releases were managed by the band's publisher,. Promotion On New Year's Eve 2007, streamed a performance filmed at Radiohead's Oxford studios featuring In Rainbows songs, poetry and additional footage. In March 2008, Radiohead partnered with animation site to create a contest whereby entrants submitted for an animated music video for an In Rainbows song.
The winner, who would receive $10,000 to create a full-length music video, was chosen by AniBOOM, Radiohead, and; Adult Swim aired the winning video. The band awarded $10,000 each to four different winners, plus $1,000 to each of ten semifinalists to create a one-minute clip. Radiohead toured North America, Europe, South America and Japan in support of In Rainbows from May 2008 until March 2009.
Critical reception Professional ratings Aggregate scores Source Rating 88/100 Review scores Source Rating A− A 9/10 9.3/10 In Rainbows received widespread critical acclaim, earning a rating of 88 out of 100 on review aggregate site, which indicates 'universal acclaim'. Various reviewers, such as 's, attributed the album's quality to Radiohead's performance in the studio and that the band sounded like they were enjoying themselves. Others, such as 's Jonathan Cohen, commended the album for not being overshadowed by its marketing hype. Andy Kellman of wrote that In Rainbows 'will hopefully be remembered as Radiohead's most stimulating synthesis of accessible songs and abstract sounds, rather than their first pick-your-price download.' The described the album as 'Radiohead reconnecting with their human sides, realising you can embrace pop melodies and proper instruments while still sounding like paranoid androids.
This is otherworldly music, alright.' , writing in, called In Rainbows 'the gentlest, prettiest Radiohead set yet' and stated that it 'uses the full musical and emotional spectra to conjure breathtaking beauty'. Of praised its 'vividly collaborative sonic touches' and concluded: 'No wasted moments, no weak tracks: just primo Radiohead.' In 2011, described it as Radiohead's 'most expansive and seductive album, possibly their all-time high.' Jon Dolan of called In Rainbows a 'far more pensive and reflective' album than Hail to the Thief, writing that it 'formulates a lush, sensualized ideal out of vague, layered discomfort.' 's Mikael Wood felt that the album 'succeeds because all of that cold, clinical lab work hasn't eliminated the warmth from their music', while 's Mark Pytlik dubbed it a more 'human' album that 'represents the sound of Radiohead coming back to earth.'
, writing for, gave In Rainbows a two-star honourable mention rating and noted that the album, having been developed in concert, was 'more jammy, less songy and less Yorkey, which is good.' Was more critical, finding 'a sense here of a group magisterially marking time, shying away. From any grand, rhetorical, countercultural purpose.' Accolades In Rainbows was ranked one of the best albums of 2007 by many music publications.
It was ranked number one by Billboard, and; NME and ranked it third, and fourth, and Rolling Stone and sixth. It was also ranked one of the best albums of the decade by several publications: the NME ranked it 10th, ranked it 45th, Rolling Stone ranked it 30th, and the Guardian ranked it 22nd, while ranked the album fifth on its list of the 10 best albums of the decade.
Rolling Stone ranked the album number 336 on their updated 2012 version of. It was included in the book. In Rainbows was nominated for the short list of the 2008 and was nominated for several awards at the:, and (for Nigel Godrich), with three Grammy nominations also for 'House of Cards' for, and. In Rainbows won awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package.
Commercial performance In early October 2007, a Radiohead spokesperson reported that most downloaders paid 'a normal retail price' for the download version, and that most fans had pre-ordered the 'discbox' edition. Citing a source close to the band, Gigwise.com reported that the album had sold 1.2 million digital copies before its retail release; however, this was dismissed by Radiohead manager Bryce Edge as 'exaggerated'. In December 2007, Yorke stated that Radiohead had made more money from digital sales of In Rainbows than the digital sales of all previous Radiohead albums combined. In October 2008, one year after the album's release, Warner Chappell reported that although most people paid nothing for the download, pre-release sales for In Rainbows were more profitable than the total sales of Hail to the Thief, and that the 'discbox' had sold 100,000 copies. In 2009, Wired reported that Radiohead had made an 'instantaneous' £3 million from the album. In 2016, Pitchfork wrote this 'proved Radiohead could release a record on the most secretive terms, basically for free, and still be wildly successful, even as industry profits continued to plummet. They were able to take that risk partly due to the fan sites and their communities, which offered a solid bedrock of support.'
Because inrainbows.com is not a chart-registered retailer, In Rainbows download and 'discbox' sales were not eligible for inclusion in the. On the week of its retail release, In Rainbows peaked at number one on the UK Album Chart, with first week sales of 44,602 copies. After some record stores broke agreements, the album entered the at number 156, but in the first week of its official release reached number one and sold 122,000 copies in the United States, making it the. In October 2008, Warner Chappell Music Publishing reported that In Rainbows had sold three million copies (1.75 million of which were physical format sales ) since its physical release in January.
The vinyl edition of In Rainbows was the best-selling vinyl album of 2008. In the US, 'Nude' reached number 35 on the, and was also Radiohead's first single to appear on the chart. ' reached number eight on the US chart. 'Jigsaw Falling into Place' peaked at number 69 in airplay on alternative rock-oriented stations.
'All I Need' was serviced to US radio by on 5 January 2009. Track listing All tracks written by (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway and Thom Yorke).
Title Length 1. '15 Step' 3:58 2. 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' 5:18 5. 'Faust Arp' 2:10 7.
'Videotape' 4:40 Total length: 42:39 Bonus disc In Rainbows Disk 2 by Released 3 December 2007. Self-released The original discbox release of the album included a second disc, which contains eight additional tracks.
On 9 June 2009, Radiohead made the tracks from this disc available for download at their 'w.a.s.t.e.' Online store, and a pressing released contains both CDs without the original box. In October 2016, this disc was made available to stream on music streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify. All tracks written by (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway and Thom Yorke). Title Length 1. 'MK 1' 1:03 2.
'Down Is the New Up' 4:59 3. 'Go Slowly' 3:48 4.
'MK 2' 0:53 5. 'Last Flowers' 4:26 6. 'Up on the Ladder' 4:17 7. 'Bangers + Mash' 3:19 8.
'4 Minute Warning' 4:04 Total length: 26:49 Personnel. (also credited for artwork as 'Dr. ^ Marshall, Julian (8 December 2007). 'Rainbow Warriors'.
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Radiohead In Rainbows Wiki
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Like many music lovers of a certain age, I have a lot of warm memories tied up with release days. I miss the simple ritual of making time to buy a record. I also miss listening to something special for the first time and imagining, against reason, the rest of the world holed up in their respective bedrooms, having the same experience. Before last Wednesday, I can't remember the last time I had that feeling. I also can't remember the last time I woke up voluntarily at 6 a.m. Either, but like hundreds of thousands of other people around the world, there I was, sat at my computer, headphones on, groggy, but awake, and hitting play. Such a return to communal exchange isn't something you'd expect to be orchestrated by a band who's wrung beauty from alienation for more than a decade.
But if the past few weeks have taught us anything, it's that Radiohead revel, above all else, in playing against type. It's written in their discography; excluding the conjoined twins that were Kid A and Amnesiac, each of their albums constitutes a heroic effort to debunk those that came before it. Although 2003's Hail to the Thief was overlong and scattershot, it was important insofar as it represented the full band's full-circle digestion and synthesis of the sounds and methods they first toyed with on OK Computer. So, after a decade of progression, where do we go from here?
If the 2006 live renditions of their new material were anything to go by, not much further. With few exceptions, the roughly 15 songs introduced during last year's tour gave the impression that after five searching records, Radiohead had grown tired of trying to outrun themselves. Taken as a whole, the guitar-centric compositions offered a portrait of a band who, whether subconsciously or not, looked conciliatory for the first time in its career. Although a wonderful surprise, their early October album announcement only lent further credence to the theory.
Where they'd previously had the confidence to precede albums like OK Computer and Kid A with marketing fanfare worthy of a classic-in-making, this sneak attack felt like a canny strategy to prepare fans for an inevitable downshift. The brilliant In Rainbows represents no such thing. Nonetheless, it's a very different kind of Radiohead record. Liberated from their self-imposed pressure to innovate, they sound- for the first time in ages- user-friendly; the glacial distance that characterized their previous records melted away by dollops of reverb, strings, and melody.
From the inclusion and faithful rendering of longtime fan favorite 'Nude' to the classic pop string accents on 'Faust Arp' to the uncharacteristically relaxed 'House of Cards', Radiohead's sudden willingness to embrace their capacity for uncomplicated beauty might be In Rainbows' most distinguishing quality, and one of the primary reasons it's an improvement on Hail to the Thief. Now that singer Thom Yorke has kickstarted a solo career- providing a separate venue for the solo electronic material he used to shoehorn onto Radiohead albums- Radiohead also sound like a full band again. Opener '15 Step's mulched-up drum intro represents the album's only dip into Kid A-style electronics; from the moment Jonny Greenwood's zestful guitar line takes over about 40 seconds in, In Rainbows becomes resolutely a five-man show. (For all of Yorke's lonely experimental pieces, it's easy to forget how remarkably the band play off each other; the rhythm section of Phil Selway and Colin Greenwood are especially incredible, supplying between them for a goldmine of one-off fills, accents, and runs over the course of the record.) A cut-up in the spirit of 'Airbag'- albeit with a jazzier, more fluid guitar line- '15 Step' gives way to 'Bodysnatchers', which, like much of In Rainbows, eschews verse/chorus/verse structure in favor of a gradual build. Structured around a sludgy riff, it skronks along noisily until about the two-minute mark, when the band veers left with a sudden acoustic interlude.
By now, Radiohead are experts at tearing into the fabric of their own songs for added effect, and In Rainbows is awash in those moments. The band's big-hearted resurrection of 'Nude' follows. The subject of fervent speculation for more than a decade, its keening melodies and immutable prettiness had left it languishing behind Kid A's front door. Despite seeming ambivalent about the song even after resurrecting it for last year's tour, this album version finds Yorke wrenching as much sweetness out of it as he possibly can, in turn giving us our first indication that he's in generous spirits. Another fan favorite, 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' brandishes new drums behind its drain-circling arpeggios, but sounds every bit as massive in crescendoing as its live renditions suggested it might. 'All I Need', meanwhile, concludes the album's first side by dressing up what begins as a skeletal rhythm section in cavernous swaths of glockenspiel, synths, pianos, and white noise. With its fingerpicked acoustic guitars and syrupy strings, 'Faust Arp' begs comparisons to some of the Beatles' sweetest two-minute interludes, while the stunning 'Reckoner' takes care of any lingering doubt about Radiohead's softer frame of mind: Once a violent rocker worthy of its title, this version finds Yorke's slinky, elongated falsetto backed by frosty, clanging percussion and a meandering guitar line, onto which the band pile a chorus of backing harmonies, pianos, and- again- swooping strings.
It may not be the most immediate track on the album, but over the course of several listens, it reveals itself to be among the most woozily beautiful things the band has ever recorded. With its lethargic, chipped-at guitar chords, 'House of Cards' is a slow, R.E.M.-shaped ballad pulled under by waves of reverbed feedback. While it's arguably the one weak link in the album's chain, it provides a perfect lead-in to the spry guitar workout of 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place'. Like 'Bodysnatchers' and 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' before it, 'Jigsaw' begins briskly and builds into a breakneck conclusion, this time with Yorke upshifting from low to high register to supply a breathless closing rant. Finally, the closer. Another fan favorite, Yorke's solo versions of 'Videotape' suggested another 'Pyramid Song' in the making. Given the spirit of In Rainbows, you'd be forgiven for assuming its studio counterpart might comprise some sort of epic finale, but to the disappointment of fans, it wasn't to be.
Instead, we get a circling piano coda and a bassline that seems to promise a climax that never comes. 'This is one for the good days/ And I have it all here on red, blue, green,' Yorke sings. It's an affecting sentiment that conjures up images of the lead singer, now a father of two, home filming his kids. A rickety drum beat and shuddering percussions work against the melody, trying clumsily to throw it off, but Yorke sings against it: 'You are my center when I spin away/ Out of control on videotape.'
As the real life drums give way to a barely distinguishable electronic counterpart, Yorke trails off, his piano gently uncoils, and the song ends with a whimper. The whole thing is an extended metaphor, of course, and, this being Radiohead, it's heavy-handed in its way, but it's also a fitting close to such a human album.
In the end, that which we feared came true: In Rainbows represents the sound of Radiohead coming back to earth. Luckily, as it turns out, that's nothing to be afraid of at all.