In Rainbows

[The Man in Blak 0]

Dumb ranking crap.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

The last three songs on are the best on the entire album.

It is definitly, defiently, and definitely worth arguing. "Reckoner" is way better. My baseball cards are cooler than yours. I'm telling mom.

[snuffbox 0]

MISSED A LETTER!

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Does this remind anyone else of "Reckoner"?

[snuffbox 0]

Not really.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Chord progression and drumming feels similar. I'm not crying ripoff or anything, I just thought it was a cool song+video, and if I could tangentially include it in a high-traffic thread, great.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

So evidently, the double-vinyl in the discbox is only the first half of the album, and doesn't include "Last Flowers Till the Hospital," "Four Minute Warning," or any of those. It's just a 42-minute album spread out over four vinyl sides. If this is true, I'm not sure about how necessary that is.

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

The outtakes have arrived.

 

MK1: Sounds like loops of "Videotape" cut up and spliced together. Basically it's just Thom groaning over Thom groaning over Thom groaning over the piano from "Videotape." It's kind of like that Genchildren thing at the end of "Motion Picture Soundtrack." Short and unessential, but it's a cool transition out of Track 10, though, isn't it?

 

Down Is The New Up: I feel there's there's the rhythm of "I Might Be Wrong," the jazz of "You And Whose Army?" and the piano stylings of "Karma Police." Now this is some awesome drumming. The chords formed here are great. There's this cool chk-chk sound in the back that I like. Fucking awesome. This is exactly what I wanted. Piano, string-synth, jazz sensibilities, the confident feel of HTTT. I like the lyrics; they're cool. We've got some thunderous drums here, too. Nice falsetto at the end there. Every second of this song was such a fucking blast to listen to. The bottom drops out at the end for a second like Backdrifts. Kick ass.

 

Go Slowly: I hear the synth from the end of "Bodysnatchers," very nice vintage analog stuff, from what I can tell. Almost Pink Floydian. It feels like "There There" would feel without three drummers, and some of the guitar sounds like No Surprises. And there are vibes! I fucking love vibes. It does drag a little bit, but it's an enjoyable sound. Nice acoustic guitar here, and I usually don't care for Radiohead's acoustic use. But really, the fact that it drags a bit is kind of a blessing, because so much of Disc 1 was way too rushed, from the drums, to the abrupt fadeouts (I wanted much more Reckoner). Still, they're back to midtempo atmospherics, which they do so well.

 

MK2: More dicking around with "Nude" clips. I sort of figured that the MKs would just be inconsequential interludes. Some of the Radiohead board people thought one of them would be "Lift." hah.

 

Last Flowers: Sounds like the basement recordings that were floating around. Just Thom on piano here, really. It's an OK Computer leftover, so the lyrics are about appliances malfunctioning and snot-nosed punks and all that. Some acoustic guitar comes in (probably Thom overdubbing himself) which works well enough. This needs glockenspiel. Remember "I Want None of This" from October 2005? This sounds a lot like that. I like what they did with this song, yeah, but I'm sort of annoyed that they were digging up songs from ten years ago to unearth for this. Has the songwriting well run dry? Evidently so; look at "Bodysnatchers." I just think Nude's window had opened and shut already, and was better off as a bonus track on the career-retrospective boxed set. This would be another song to get that fate, along with "Lift," which I love. But I guess it's good enough to be here. At least Phil didn't shit all over this.

 

Up On the Ladder: Another old one, but this sounds different than the bootleg we all have. Different intro, the melody is more subtle and hidden under synths and laptops. I think it sounds great, and I predict that it will crescendo into the familiar riff. Nope. Just right to "stuck in the tardis." I don't watch Doctor Who. It's starting to sound a lot like "I Might Be Wrong." It might need that riff to come crushing in. More string-synth in place of what was Ondes Martenot on the bootleg, I do believe. I love that it really sounds like Radiohead, after some of the misfires like "Faust Arp." There's a crackling sound here that sounds pretty neat, but I want that riff to come in! At least I can understand what Thom is singing this time, unlike the bootleg from 2003. Well, I never got that loud guitar. It just fades out. Still, closer to Amnesiac and whoa cool synth flourish to end it.

 

Bangers & Mash: Steaming pile.

 

4 Minute Warning: Starts with a bunch of rolling synths, then it has some undersea-sounding guitar on the right, tambourine on the left. Perfect "impossibly optimistic" closer, just like MPS. This might be even better than "Videotape" to close this out, but it sort of ends abruptly. This feels like the logical progression from Kid A and The Eraser.

 

Well, this is just phenomenal (except track 7), and as I had hoped, it really redeemed In Rainbows for me. My only question is why all 18 songs weren't released at once? This essentially made CD2 an $80 EP, and as much as I love these songs, it's an $80 EP, c'mon. The fact that these are so in line with what Radiohead does best makes CD1 songs like "Faust Arp" and "House of Cards" sound pretty retarded. Now at least I know they still know what works, and are not "at their most immediate and sensual," because they sucked at being immediate and sensual.

 

What ever happened to "Mornin' M'Lord"? I was really looking forward to that one! It had potential.

[snuffbox 0]

Hey, I like "House of Cards"

[k thx 0]

Quick impressions:

 

The mks are just what they are. Bit odd to have interludes on a bonus disk though.

 

DITNU I never liked from the bootlegs, but they did alright with it. The strings surprised me, and were nice, but I'm not a fan of the song.

 

Go Slowly drags a bit, same with Last Flowers.

 

I miss the bite of Up On The Ladder. Agree that it sounds like IMBW, only without a riff to center itself around.

 

Not listened to the rest yet, but not massively impressed and wouldn't put any of these songs ahead of what's on In Rainbows.

[The Man in Blak 0]

I almost feel like I need to make a direct response to Czech's hysterical impressions, but I'll just chime in with some comments of my own for now.

 

Mk1 - As previously advertised, it's a loop of "Videotape" stuff. Pretty much an obligatory transition from the end of Disc 1, but it works.

 

Down Is The New Up - Good idea: building the "evil" half of the chorus on those drums, which roll with the chord sequence perfectly. Bad idea: the harmonic bait-and-switch that immediately follows that buildup. It might make for a neat trick at the end of the song (and apparently Radiohead thinks so too, since they revisit it at the end), but when it's presented as an actual part of the song, the transition doesn't work as well once the element of surprise is gone (say, by the second playthrough). Also ill-advised: Thom's White Guy falsetto indulgence that rides out the end of the song. Don't get me wrong, I like this one all right, but the song seems a little fractured, structurally, and it doesn't fare as well after the first go-round. Sounds like it would fit perfectly on Hail to the Thief and I mean that in every possible positive and negative way.

 

Go Slowly - Three tracks in and you can already feel a departure in pacing from the first disc, which seemed to race from song to song at times. Slow, peaceful track that arcs into a nice vocal moment about a minute and a half in, then falls away, acoustic guitar making one last grasp at the ledge. Pretty good.

 

Mk2 - Another unremarkable sound collage. Sucks, really, and we're starting to slow to an absolute crawl, pacing-wise.

 

Last Flowers - Just about the worst fucking place for this one. Another slow piece, piano and acoustic guitar. Takes too long to get started (strip the first 30 seconds and go straight into the vocals, says I) and really doesn't go anywhere once it finally decides to go. Rather than building to a moment or any sort of climax, it just gets a little louder at the end and works in a suspension. Kinda dreadful, when positioned within the context of this disc so far but, even as a standalone shot, it's still only merely okay.

 

Up On The Ladder - I haven't heard the demos for this, so I can't see the curveball here, but I absolutely welcome a song with a pulse, at this point. If Radiohead really had some balls, they'd just bring UNKLE or Modeselektor into the studio, have them lay a real beat on this, and come to grips with the fact that they've actually made a dance song. All things considered, this is probably my favorite song off of the second disc, though I think it will really have more legs once it's inevitably resurrected via a "Talk Show Host"-esque remix.

 

Bangers & Mash - Oh, dear. You can kind of see some promise in there about a minute and a half in, but those hopes are quickly smashed once the "break down" comes through a little bit later. Probably about as bad a track as they've ever made.

 

4 Minute Warning - Nice round of synth noise to start and then we hit the real song, which sounds like Thom singing from the bottom of a well. Works out pretty well, though it does kind of chop off at the end, right when it feels like you want to build up. Kind of a quirky little minimalist thing, but it works. Not bad for a closer to the disc.

 

Overall, I think the second disc makes for a decent bonus disc, but there's nothing here that completely warps my impressions of In Rainbows. Completely supplemental, which makes it perfect for the Radiohead worshippers that dropped $80 or whatever it was for the discbox.

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

Interesting that neither of you think that any of these are better than "Bodysnatchers, ""House of Cards," and "Faust Arp." By interesting, I mean puzzling. There's crap on that first disc. This is where they got it right. I agree that "Go Slowly" and "Last Flowers" are too close for comfort, sequentially speaking, which is why they should've been spread out through the rest of the album as respites from "intimate, sensual" double-time garbage. I disagree with its supplemental nature. I think it should just be considered one 18-track album.

 

At least we agree that "Bangers & Mash" is like Pablo Honey-B-side bad.

[k thx 0]

The last two songs suck as well.

 

Disappointing, but maybe it'll grow.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Interesting that neither of you think that any of these are better than "Bodysnatchers, ""House of Cards," and "Faust Arp." By interesting, I mean puzzling. There's crap on that first disc.

 

If you consider those songs to be "crap", then that encapsulates our difference of opinions into one nice little box, doesn't it?

 

Like I've said before, I have a sneaky suspicion that this album will open up for you a couple of years from now. The fact that you celebrate the second disc because it's "more in line with Radiohead does best" and laud "Up On The Ladder" because it "sounds like Radiohead" reveals a real (and quite possibly narrow) preconception of the band's work. Also, as an aside, I think it's kind of ironic that you harp on about "intimate, sensual" (endlessly, I might add), but then you invoke a real brow-scruncher like "the confidence of HTTT" in the same round of posts.

 

If you think that "Faust Arp" or "House of Cards" are really that lousy, then I invite you to explain how you've come to that conclusion, but only if you'll challenge yourself to come up with a better explanation than "they don't sound like Radiohead", which seems to be all that you've offered as a response to date.

[Guest My Pal, the Tortoise]

My preconception of Radiohead's music is more of an overarching thing than a narrow view: it's just that they're "big," so to speak. That's all. Big. Big ideas, big sounds, everything is reaching far. Whether they're executing it with guitars, laptops, or anywhere in between, it's always ambitious and endearingly overreaching, lyrically and sonically, and I've perceived that for a lot of people, that sense of hugeness is what makes their music so loved. Kid A and Amnesiac explored jazz and electronic. Hail to the Thief bit off more than it could chew. The Bends and OK Computer were "big" as well, just listen to "Fake Plastic Trees," "Street Spirit," or "No Surprises."

 

I would argue that rarely has Radiohead attempted any sort of minimalism, and never has it been successful. That's the fundamental departure of In Rainbows, and why I just didn't like so much of the first half. "Nude" and "Arpeggi," two great songs that we'd been familiar with for some time, were ruined by arrangements that took the--borrowing from my Sports folder schtick--fire and the passion out both of them. They don't soar like they used to. The instrumentation was too stripped down, too bare in comparison, and I just didn't like the new arrangements. I'm sorry that I can't offer more of a complaint than "it's not what I was hoping to hear." If you order fish, you expect it to taste like fish.

 

As for "House of Cards," it's just too dull and too plodding. It never seems to get off the ground. It just loafs around on that "Island in the Sun"-sounding riff with too much groaning. I've been over how underwhelming the lyrics are; yeah, Thom, I've seen The Ice Storm too. It's the longest track on the album, and it says the least. "Faust Arp" is just derivative and, again, too stripped down. I'm not really a huge fan of Thom's acoustic numbers, like "Gagging Order" or "True Love Waits," taking up album time. The lyrics are just a bunch of bluff and bluster with a few lines here and there that distinguish themselves, and--again, sorry!--the pastoral sound just doesn't fit them.

[k thx 0]

On second play, I like the second disc of songs more, but the album itself is far better.

[snuffbox 0]

These are the cities in NA that Radiohead will play in 2008-

 

Atlanta

Boston

Charlotte

Chicago

Cleveland

Dallas

Houston

Indianapolis

Los Angeles

Miami

Montreal

New York

Philadelphia

San Diego

San Francisco

Santa Barbara

Seattle

St Louis

Tampa

Toronto

Vancouver

Washington DC

 

 

[Man Who Sold The World 0]

Without getting into the instrumentation of the album, or how it was stripped down,

just being able to sit down and listen to it, it's good. Give me "In Rainbows" over ANY mainstream

record of 2007, plain and simple.

I believe Radiohead was making a point (albeit a rather arrogant one), that

their average offering, is tons better than what mainstream flushes us with on a daily

basis. We live in an age of Follow The Leader; what one person does that is successful,

we attach ourselves, hanging on until the "train" is too long, someone must break off and start

a new.

Radiohead proves that you don't always have to take the train, that there are other ways

of transportation.

I'm really into bands and artists that really Love what they do, and it shows when you listen

to their records. I hold an appreciation for people who have passion in what they do, and how

it resonates thru every track (or scene, or page, etc.), and Radiohead, even when they're

rushed or lazy, project their love and passion for music.

 

I do agree, however, that "Nude" was better left untouched the way it was, some ten years ago.

 

God, this would have made more sense, and been shorter, had I not been drunk. Ah well.

 

 

[Ravenbomb 0]

Edge went on to explain that Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke really isn't looking forward to the tour, saying, "He likes to do shows, but the whole business of schlepping round the world is not top of his favorite things to do."

 

Only Radiohead can get away with publicizing a concert tour by saying that the band isn't looking forward to doing it.

 

I blame Scott Tenormen. That kid is just not cool.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

Little cwybaby

[godthedog 0]

I believe Radiohead was making a point (albeit a rather arrogant one), that

their average offering, is tons better than what mainstream flushes us with on a daily

basis.

 

this REALLY doesn't make sense though. what kind of artist purposely underachieves on a record they put their name on just to make a point, especially an artist with the amount of self-respect and devotion to craft that you're ascribing to radiohead? is the logic, "we love our art so much that we're going to not work that hard on this next album, just to prove that we can still make a good album when we don't try that hard"?

[Kinetic 0]

No, you misread that. What he was saying is that In Rainbows is an anti-train record so powerful that it could well be the final nail in the coffin of the railroad industry.

[Man Who Sold The World 0]

No, you misread that. What he was saying is that In Rainbows is an anti-train record so powerful that it could well be the final nail in the coffin of the railroad industry.

 

 

[snuffbox 0]

Hopefully the US tourdates are announced this week.

[snuffbox 0]

http://www.radiohead.com/tourdates/

[Guest !!!]

I downloaded In Rainbows at 320 kb/s and there are STILL digital glitches on "Reckoner" and elsewhere, which must mean that it was on the actual CD that people paid like $80 for. Album of the year my fucking ass. There's only charm in analog imperfections, and even that claim is dubious to me. Take some fucking pride in your work and master your album properly.

[godthedog 0]

i know i came way late to the party (i only bought it about 2 1/2 months ago), but i really like this album. i've probably listened to it 3-4 times a week since i got it. "house of cards" is terrible and "videotape" doesn't work for a whole variety of reasons, but the overall sound is good. "reckoner" is fucking beautiful and "jigsaw falling into place" is fantastic.

[Copper Feel 0]

I only paid £10 for the album, and I haven't noticed any glitches. I have pretty much fallen in love with In Rainbows as well, the stupid wall of flound that is "Bodysnatchers" being its only weak song.

[Guest !!!]

There are digital pops and glitches in "All I Need," "House of Cards", and about three in the last third or so of "Reckoner." I thought you would catch those for sure. I thought that I just had a problem decompressing the files, but it seems like they did a slapdash job finalizing this. I'm really sore because "Reckoner" is such an amazing song.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I was talking with one of my similarly Radiohead-fond friends, who now only likes Kid A and OK Computer more than this. Still can't quite get there myself, though I like it more than I did before I saw them live. Hearing "All I Need" on XM all the time is still kind of weird.