Colin Fairbairn

In Rainbows Review

Its funny, there have always been comments by music fans, musicians, and the press about how Radiohead act so self important. I never really thought that they did really act that way. I always felt that they genuinely believed in what they were doing and worked hard at it. In Rainbows, though, to me, is Radiohead finally acting self important. In lieu of the tremendous depth that their songs usually have, the band has opted for cheap production tricks. Like much of Thom Yorke’s solo album, In Rainbows features “cut and chop” production pasted over lackluster songs. Radiohead have confused their “innovative” song writing and production with a poorly executed production style that is being (and has BEEN) done by so many other, lesser known (less “important”) artist. As much as Thom Yorke wants to be Squarepusher, he’s just not. He’s a songsmith, an emotive singer, and a master of building tension in music. Where is the tension on In Rainbows? In Rainbows sounds closer to Nigel Godrich’s collaboration with Sir Paul than a Radiohead record, with its close miked to death sounds, forced loops, and half hearted song writing.

Radiohead’s innovation this time is giving away free music. But that’s the thing, its not worth paying for! I would’ve felt ripped off had I paid for it. Just like the Flamming Lips post Yoshimi, Radiohead have blown their wad since Kid A. I know that sounds harsh, but try this experiment:

Make a playlist of the following songs:
Planet Telex
The Bends
Airbag
Paranoid Android
Everything In Its Right Place
Kid A

Those are the first 2 songs off The Bends, Ok Computer, and Kid A. Within just TWO songs on each album, the band INSTANTLY create unique worlds that you just want to lose yourself in. Those are wonderful headphone albums that can just make you see the world around you differently. In Rainbows is just another “Zero 7″ hipster cocktail party background playlist for luxury loft apartments somewhere in New York…

Let’s examine rock’s residing “authority” on all things tasteful, Nick Hornby, review of Kid A.

“You have to work at albums like ‘Kid A.’ You have to sit at home
night after night and give yourself over to paranoid millennial
atmosphere as you try to decipher elliptical snatches of lyrics
and puzzle out how the titles … might refer to the songs. In other
words you have to be sixteen.

“Anyone old enough to vote may find that he has competing demands
for his time - a relationship, say, or a job, or buying food, or
listening to another CD he picked up on the same day.

“I suspect that people who have been listening to rock music for
decades will have exhausted the fund of trust they once might have
had for ‘challenging’ albums. ‘Kid A’ demands the patience of the
devoted; both patience and devotion become scarcer commodities once
you start picking up a paycheck.”

- Nick Hornby, The New Yorker, Oct. 30, 2000.

In his review, Hornby continually BLASTS a rock band for daring to break away from the cliches and make something truly new and challenging. Ironically, Kid A was panned as the “electronica” album that “sounds like that Aphex Twins band.” But was that really what it was? I listen to a lot of “out there” music and have yet to hear an album that sounds anything like Kid A. I honestly think Can’s Tago Mago is the closet reference, but then again, Kid A has better song writing, more compelling lyrics and far more emotive vocals. In other words, Kid A did what Bjork used to do: pull from past “avante garde” innovators and meld their unappreciated qualities with those of current “next big things” in music while laying all that on top a perfectly made bed of well crafted songs. Kid A was a rock record! It had TONS of guitars on it! Its just that the band had found such unique ways to use them that no one recognized them! You know, like how people in the 1960s, like Jimi Hendrix, used to do. In Rainbows doesn’t have ANY of that, just beat of the week production tricks…

I have a HUGE collection of Radiohead bootlegs and I’ve been fascinated, over the last decade and a half, at how their songs have evolved and particularly, how well those songs have worked in all their different forms. The all acoustic version of Subterrean Homesick Alien is still brilliant. The Pixes like rushed live in Berlin version of Airbag has a perfect immediacy to it. The soulful renditions of “Nude” worked just as well as the sparse solo acoustic ones… I could go on. But the songs on In Rainbows CAN’T be stripped down because there are no songs underneath all the studio trickery. I dare say that they’re BORING even WITH all the studio trickery! The minimal versions are ever WORSE. The first live version I heard of Arpeggi nearly put me to sleep!

Just like the Flamming Lips, Sigur Ros and Beck, Radiohead have cornered themselves. Their desire to continue to be “innovators” has overtaken their desire to do what they each do best… and what Radiohead do best has NEVER been cut and chop cheeze, its been writing moving music and putting it out in bold and raw forms, not neatly packaged “look how clever we are” free records.

While everyone keeps coming up with theories for why the music industry is in a slump, blaming piracy, Radiohead is about to prove that you can’t even GIVE half assed music away… even with a publicity stunt… Let’s face it, Britney is doing a MUCH better job of that, her record went to number 1.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 1:10 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.