What resonates with me on In Rainbows that I can't find in their other records is the gloomy and dark feel. There are very few energetic songs on this album and most of the tracks are cathartic pieces where Yorke's falsetto meets slow piano chords or bare acoustic guitars instead of groovy basslines or rougher electric guitars. It's a sparse and introspective album that feels lonesome and foreign. It's a combination of elements present throughout all of their previously released albums, with IDM-influenced tracks like 15 Step taking cues from Kid A and Amnesiac, slowcore-influenced songs like the The Bends-esque nude, the high-energy burts Bodysnatchers not sounding too far from the stuff on Hail To The Thief all while combining it with a more modern take on alt-rock in tracks like Reckoner and Weird Fishes/Arpeggi.
It might sound like the album is a mess to listen to but it all ties together so naturally under a similar underlying tone and the variation between the tracks never feel too far off which is what makes the whole album work so well as a whole.
In Rainbows starts with the already mentioned 15 Step, which might feel like a throwback to some of Thom Yorke's side projects or their Amnesiac-works. It's a track that features obviously virtual drums which give the song its alienated feel. 15 Step feels like an odd opener that doesn't really resemble anything else on the record and the following song, Bodysnatchers, also feel like an ill fit with its high energy riffs and and Yorke's frantic singing. It isn't until after these two that In Rainbows finally settle into the depressing groove that I've personally come to cherish it for.
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi is built around an arpeggiated guitar as Yorke sings about "getting eaten by the worms / and weird fishes" it's a sparse song that mainly focuses on Yorke's vocal performance under the arpeggio and some snappy drums. It's around this point that the album turns into the greatest Radiohead album but it isn't until it reaches the song Reckoner, the greatest song of their career so far and also one of the greatest single tracks ever created.
I'm honestly not sure what I want to say about Reckoner, but you have the song for yourself embedded a couple of rows up. It starts of so simplistically with the high-end crash and ride as the smooth guitar lines come in. I'm not sure if its the groove of the drums, the choir calling out "In Rainbows" or Thom Yorke's desperate voice sounding like its about to give in if it doesn't get a chance to perform this one song. It's a track that's packed to the brim with so much emotion that finally bursts once we reach the "Because we separate, like ripples on the shore"-part only to return as an even stronger force when the strings come in. It's the one song that got me into Radiohead's music after being lukewarm to the band for years and even returning to the band's music today, Reckoner and In Rainbows are the only two that truly do something that still resonates with me.
In Rainbows was released online allowing users to "pay what they want" for the record, something that we still see the effect of today in various bandcamp releases where bands allow fans to buy their albums for any price they want, be it 0$ or 100$.
However that is probably the only thing that In Rainbows actually started. Despite being a great album, it hasn't gone on to influence anything and has a quite awkward spot on the top 100. I'm not saying it's a bad album, becacuse it isn't, but it doesn't really quite fit alongside the other works on this chart and I personally would not say it deserves a spot on this list and I believe it mostly is on here for the same reason that tons of Pink Floyd is on here or tons of Led Zeppelin or tons of any band that did a couple of great things; a huge fanbase.
Still, give this album a go if you're curious about Radiohead. Skip stuff like OK Computer and Kid A. Those albums might be more interesting, but none of them really achieves what In Rainbow has.
Radiohead
In Rainbows [2007]
8/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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