"In Rainbows" Radiohead: and How They Earned the Right to Blow Your Mind

As many of you know, on October 1st, a very important band made a very important announcement. Sure it was just announcing their new album, and sure bands throughout history have announced new albums, but never before has a band announced it in quite this way. There was hype leading up to that announcement that I missed out on, but I hear it was pretty rad. But on that night, on October 1st, the band told the world that they had just finished their new album, and that it would be available in just ten days. Not next year, not next month, next fucking week. The tiny tubes that make up the intarwebs could barely sustain themselves under the strain of the anticipation, and I know I waited with bated breath each and every day after reading Paul Tao's tip off on the elbo.ws forums. I jumped on immediately and placed my order (I put in 0.00 because I could). This whole new way of doing things was exciting and generated a LOT of discussion. I don't really want to talk about that so much as I want to talk about how we shouldn't really be surprised at this point and how Radiohead single-handedly rekindled the magic of the midnight sale.

Like I said in a post last year, with "OK Computer" Radiohead have banked enough cred to do pretty much whatever the hell they want to. That album is the last great album in my lifetime, and pretty much the last great album of the 1900's. It's easy to say that Radiohead is our generation's Beatles, but it's easy because it's true.

With three years between "OK Computer" and "Kid A/Amnesiac", everyone and their brother was expecting great things. I remember being a freshman at Ohio State and downloading crummy versions of tracks like "Morning Bell" and "Packt Like Sardines..." and thinking this couldn't be the same band behind "Exit Music for a Film". Radiohead didn't sound like this. This was...weird and difficult. This was not "OK Computer". After I got each album I was determined to like them, but I didn't at first. I didn't want this to be the band I loved, I didn't want this "music". But if any album has ever been a grower, it was the both of these.

They took what everyone thought they were going to do and tossed it out the window. Thom Yorke and Co. wanted to explore a certain sound, and they didn't care if anyone bought the album (well, I'm sure they cared, but they didn't let that thought affect the music that they were going to create). I vaguely remember everyone's incredulity as they heard this music for the first time, I remember Spin describing one or the other using terms like "scratched records", "backwards vocals" and "no instruments". It was things like this that had me scared, but I trusted Thom, I trusted Radiohead, and that was based solely on the greatness of "OK Computer". They were able to turn their sound on it's ear and release two discs that broke the mold of what most would consider music, yet they still went Platinum and Gold. They released these incredibly divisive albums, and still sold millions of copies. They could have lost scores of fans, but rather than losing them, they probably gained even more.

And then, in 2003, they did it again, only this time, it was the reverse. If everyone was scared/excited of the pending release of "Kid A/Amnesiac", we were all excited/hopeful for the release of "Hail to the Thief". I bought that album at the midnight sale at Johnny Go's House o' Music, it was three days before I would leave for England and it had an energy that I wouldn't feel until years later waiting in line at a Wal-Mart for the Nintendo Wii. It seems that the halcyon days of exciting releases marked by midnight get-togethers at the local record shop have been replaced with the impending release of Halo 3 and Harry Potter. Now, music fans just click on that Amazon link, buy it from iTunes or, until recently, downloaded the torrent months in advance with the noble, yet often quickly forgotten, promise to buy it "if it was any good". There's no excitement with release dates being broken months ahead of time or with few, if any, worthwhile AAA releases in a given month. Combine that with the saturation of blogs and magazines and radio and commercials and ringtones and you're almost guaranteed to be sick of an album by the time it comes out.

But Radiohead avoided this entire quagmire, wholesale, by holding the recordings hostage for those ten excruciatingly exciting days. The old-guard print guys cried foul and pounded their fists with consternation and entitlement as they were told to wait just like everyone else. The torrent sites were silent and the only hint of the album was a collection of YouTube clips that I never watched. And so we all watched and waited and clutched our headphones close to our ears with "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and "Karma Police" and "How to Disappear Completely". When the download code for "In Rainbows" finally arrived in my inbox at 1:28AM, I was asleep, probably dreaming of Paranoid Androids or Homesick Aliens. But the first thing I did that morning - before I brushed my teeth, before I let the dog out, before I took my morning constitutional - I downloaded the most important album this year. I loaded it onto my iPod after I was dressed and I waited impatiently to get to work where I could listen. When we turned on the radio in the car, CD101 was playing "15 Step", but I didn't know that yet. I could tell without even knowing that it was the new Radiohead , so I turned off the radio quickly and tried to forget what I'd just heard. I wanted to listen to the whole thing straight through for the first time, along with everyone else in the world, just like when I was in college listening to "Kid A" or "Amnesiac" or "Hail to the Thief". I wanted to fall in love with an album at the same time as everyone else, I wanted to be part of this collective happening, this experience that kids just like me were all having at that moment. The internet has eliminated that innate human need to be a part of something, but with "In Rainbows", Radiohead brought it back.

I'm almost sad for the other bands that might try this model in the future, because it won't work. No band could have done this like Radiohead did, because in a slightly different fashion, they've already done it before, twice. Radiohead takes pleasure in the unexpected, they love to make us think about things differently, and I imagine they love making everyone in the world squirm. But we put up with it. Why? Because they earned it. They released one of the greatest albums of all time, and we love them for it. We love listening to "OK Computer" in the rain, or in the warm sun-rays of a spring afternoon, or maybe it's snowing and "Let Down" comes on when you're doing the dishes. It's a perfect album and everyone knows it. It's the achievement that's given them the leeway to do all this crazy shit and it's okay, because they're Radiohead for crying out loud. If Oasis tries this, it's gonna fail. If Jamiroquai or NIN or Madonna attempts something like this, it won't work. It's been done. It might be improved upon, but it will never be repeated. That would be like turning your toilet on it's side and calling it art; it just won't work. "In Rainbows" is just what the music community needed, a jolt of energy that we haven't felt in years, and it came from a band that's been giving us jolts since 1997. Thanks guys, I look forward to the next one.

"Reckoner" Radiohead
"House of Cards" Radiohead
"Let Down" Radiohead
"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" Radiohead

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