Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007) (1 Viewer)

This is an ongoing favourite of mine. I've listened to it loads. Apparently 'nude' is a pretty old song. As usual I'll say the basement versions this are amazing. Maybe just because you see it's just playing, not an overdubbing frenzy. Tkol's oddness usually makes it my favourite.
To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 
Listening to In Rainbows now, it's an album I always enjoy while I'm listening to it but the second the needle lifts, I begin to forget all the details. Aside from "Videotapes", it all blurs into one long song, it and King of Limbs are indistinguishable in my mind's ear. It's not necessarily a criticism, it's interesting to hear a huge band focus on moods and textures instead of hooks and choruses. I feel like these are transitionary albums towards the latest one (which is brilliant).

One annoying thing though, the vinyl is mastered at 45 RPM which means that it feels like I'm getting up to change sides every couple of minutes. Same issue with King of Limbs which is a double 10", which is a shit format for an album. Much more enjoyable to listen to them on CD/streaming uninterrupted.
 
I do like it a lot but there's something a little unsatisfactory about it, I can't quite out my finger on it exactly. I like all the bits but as a whole it seems half baked. The good bits and the deadly bits don't seem to resolve into good or deadly songs. I must give that basement session a closer watch, it might help make sense of it.
 
I love the massed chiming guitars on Weird Fishes
Fucking class that.

I really love the sound of the drums on 15 Step. Great riffing too.
Side B (or the later tracks on the cd) is more accessible. The following triple play is sublime.

Reckoner
House of Cards
Jigsaw Falling into Place
I'm less into Reckoner and House of Cards, but they knocked it out of the park with Jigsaw Falling into Place. Amazing song.

These pricks ever going to play Ireland again or what.
 
Fucking class that.

I really love the sound of the drums on 15 Step. Great riffing too.

I'm less into Reckoner and House of Cards, but they knocked it out of the park with Jigsaw Falling into Place. Amazing song.

These pricks ever going to play Ireland again or what.

Yeah, easily one of the best live bands I've seen - 4 or 5 times now. Think the Hail to the Thief tour in the Point was the best.

There's something about the mood of Reckoner and House of Cards that I love. You can relax in to them.
 
Yeah, easily one of the best live bands I've seen - 4 or 5 times now. Think the Hail to the Thief tour in the Point was the best.

There's something about the mood of Reckoner and House of Cards that I love. You can relax in to them.
That Point show was great apart from the dickhead near me who kept shouting for Whiskey in the Jar after every song.

Saw them at the Olympia before HTTT came out, it was a fan club thing and it was absolutely amazing. People had come from all over the world for a three night stint. They opened with "There There" and it was fucking magic.
 
I think its a little surprising that this was the first Radiohead album to appear here. But, having listened a good bit over the past week its become a little less surprising.

Full disclosure: when this was made available online on a pay-as-much-as-you-want basis, I downloaded it without payign anything for it. I justified this to myself by promising to buy it when it was released physically. Which I did, eventually, maybe a year or two later.

Its been the most enjoyable album week so far though. Up to now its been albums I already know, or albums I don't know at all. This was the first album I knew a bit, but I thought I knew better than I did.

I got on board with Radiohead in the early 90s, somewhere between Pablo Honey and The Bends. They were a band I listened to a lot, almost obsessively, if truth be told, while at college. I can remember them being one of the first bands to properly embrace the internet. Their website was almost pioneering in its presentation and its content (W.A.S.T.E it was called). I remember them putting out a 'computer program' (known today as an 'app', to all you kids who might never have heard that term) via their website that was an accompanyment to The Bends. I remember looking at it on the computers in college and being a bit amazed by it. But really all it was, was a menu with about 7 options - some played snippets of songs from the album, others showed short mpegs, while others just showed lyrics with fancy font and graphics. So, whereas Pablo Honey was a rock'n'roll album, The Bends was becoming something a lot more than that, in my mind anyway.

People I was in college with knew them, but I don't recall them being hugely well known besides (I'm talking 1993/94 here). Nor do I recall if they played here on any tour they might have done post The Bends.

Fast-forward to 1997. It was at the end of the college year (my final year in college), and Ok Computer came out. Things got a little bit out-of-control, and I can't recall how it happened. I remember there being lots of hype because of the Paranoid Android video. And while I still have good time for the album, I still don't understand how it was considered in the light it was. It has some amazing moment but its a pretty disjointed body of work IMO. Actually, the songs that didn't make that album, that were released on the series of singles that were put out (I bought all of them), were often better. 'A Reminder', being an example - still one of my favourite Radiohead songs to this day.

I first saw them live after Ok Computer in that monster gig they played in the RDS showjumping place. Hell of a lineup too - Teenage Fanclub, Massive Attack, and Radiohead. I remember really enjoying the first 2 bands. I don't honestly remember that much about Radiohead.

Then 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac'. Some of the 'fans' drifted away at that point - too obscure - but I loved both. They played Punchestown around then and it was amazing. Still one of my favourite gigs.

Then 'Hail to the Thief', which I also loved.

I really liked Radiohead a lot at that point. The hangers-on-ers had fucked off - important for a cynical prick like me. They seemed like there was a bit of momentum about them, that they were a proper band rather than some fucking myth that pricks were perpetuating.

I don't remember what year the Marlay Park gig was, and I won't tell the story again about how Thom Yorke gave me daggers at the deerhoof gig the night before (its all here deerhoof wednesday aug 23 tbmc - it was 2006, yo). I do recall not enjoying it that much (Radiohead I mean. Deerhoof were great). That was the last time I saw them live.

I started losing interest after that. It wasn't helped by the 3-year hiatus they went on afterwords. When they did come back I kept buying the albums, moreso out of a misplaced sense of loyalty moreso than actually wanting to (I did the same with Oasis albums for fucks sake). I eluded to it before - the rest of Radiohead's career is kind of a blur to me. I wouldn't say I loved it or hated it. I was just never gripped enough by what they were doing to be all that interested in investing massive amounts of time listening. But, we're really only talking about 2 albums (this and King of Limbs). I'm excluding the one released this year cos its still fairly new.

During their most recent hiatus Radiohead the myth seems to have grown again. Particularly in the time between it being announced that Moon Shaped Pool was being released, and its actual release. My facebook feed was full of shite from Radiohead 'fans', who wouldn't know their arses from their elbows when it came to music (including Radiohead music). I don't like that shite. It feeds my cynicism.

Anyway, thats the context/disclaimer. Big Radiohead fan. Prefer their earlier stuff.

So, this pops up in album club. I'm a bit cynical about it. But I'm willing to park that cynicism and give it a proper go. And its been great. I've listened about 3 times every day for the last week and I'm not even starting to get sick of it. But, as for reviewing it, its hard to know where to start. I still have the same problem where songs are often fairly indistinguishable from each other. There isn't a bad song on there but there isn't really one that you'd consider it being possible to sing-along to. Though 'Reckoner' is the obvious standout for me.

If I had one criticism its that the production is almost too perfect. Its very polished. I've noticed a couple of people referring to 'basement demos' of some of these songs, so I'm guessing I'm not the only one who thinks this. I haven't heard those demos but I'm dying to listen.

Other than that, what else is there to say. One thing I'll say for Radiohead is that they are masters of writing songs that suit Thom Yorke's voice perfectly. When I listen to these songs, its him I hear first, even though the music is beautiful, almost without exception.

I think I owe Radiohead an apology. And I probably owe myself one too. I've subconsciously stopped myself liking them as much as I should have. For completely spurious and nonsensical reasons. Soz Radiohead.

I need to go listen to King of Limbs now.

5/5
 
hail to the thief is grabbing me way more than in rainbows (spotify has continued into it a few times when in rainbows finished, then enjoyably through amnesiac, i might be wrong (live album) and kid A, before getting to OK computer which i found irritating and skipped back to HTTT)

i also thought radiohead were for festival-trotting studenty twats until now and will have to change my ways
 
I gave the album one listen through; Weird Fishes and Videotapes stuck in my mind, but not a whole let else.
However I watched that Basement thing and really enjoyed the songs way more, from seeing the live performance. That's a great show anyway and i love the set up, though i never seem to catch decent bands on it whenever i actually watch it.
Anyhooooo - I'm not sure I'd go back to In Rainbows. I don't know what my Radiohead block is. I am sure I'm unfairly dismissing them, as other's on here have said, and may yet come to understand their amazingness.
The thing I have with them is my own sense that they are humorless and overly earnest. Yes experimentation is all well and good, but for it's own sake it becomes joyless and dull. Tie it to some decent tunes however and you've got something.
In Rainbows goes along nicely but it feels airless to me. The songs are skittery, which i like, but fail to stick in my mind. I lilke hooks, i like choruses, so maybe I'm missing those. Yes I know they're doing "textures", meh.
Anyway, from watching the Basement show i saw that they do have humour, they look like they don't hate each other, they can whip up amazing squalls of sound in a heartbeat or drop to near Talk Talk like levels of silence, and they are certainly a talented bunch. So in a roundabout way that's my review. I'd maybe go 3/5 and I may well give the new album a listen as a fair few mates have already recommended that I do so. The struggle continues.
 
Never grabbed me but gonna give it another go. The new album grew on me and some of it is my favourite Radiohead stuff since Amnesiac. They sorta lost me with HTTT and In Rainbows, King Of Limbs, I put on for a spin or two and promptly forgot them tbh.
 
Never grabbed me but gonna give it another go. The new album grew on me and some of it is my favourite Radiohead stuff since Amnesiac. They sorta lost me with HTTT and In Rainbows, King Of Limbs, I put on for a spin or two and promptly forgot them tbh.

where you there in Darraghs when i was giving out about this album and everyone else disagreed with me
 
a bit like reading thumped:

Meredith Graves Interviews Her Dad About Radiohead

this bit

One of the reasons I never liked them — and I’ll admit this — is that when I was in college the people I knew who loved Radiohead were loathsome people. There were two kinds of Radiohead fans then: people who fancied themselves superior, at the absolute cutting edge of things because they also liked Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and Radiohead fans who had posters up next to their Bob Marley tapestries

is pretty much why I stopped listening after OK Computer. I'd imagine if I hadn't got into them when was about 13 then I would have never given them the time of day by the time Kid A and beyond were coming out.

Now that everybody considers themselves superior for not liking the 90's stuff I find myself doubling down on it out of spite.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Activity
So far there's no one here
Old Thread: Hello . There have been no replies in this thread for 365 days.
Content in this thread may no longer be relevant.
Perhaps it would be better to start a new thread instead.

21 Day Calendar

Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Gig For Gaza w/ ØXN, Junior Brother, Pretty Happy & Mohammad Syfkhan
Vicar Street
58-59 Thomas St, The Liberties, Dublin 8, Ireland
Bloody Head, Hubert Selby Jr Infants, Creepy Future - Dublin
Anseo
18 Camden Street Lower, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland

Support thumped.com

Support thumped.com and upgrade your account

Upgrade your account now to disable all ads... If we had any... Which we don't right now.

Upgrade now

Latest threads

Latest Activity

Loading…
Back
Top