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'In Rainbows' Subverts Industry, Expectations

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By CURTIS ROSS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 19, 2007

By releasing 'In Rainbows' as a pay-what-you-will download (a conventional CD package is to be released in 2008), Radiohead stirred up plenty of speculation about its latest album, almost none of it having to do with the music.

Listening to 'In Rainbows,' the radical marketing plan begins to smell like a subterfuge, a bit of smoke and mirrors under which Radiohead has released its most accessible work since 1997's 'OK Computer' and its most melodic one since 1995's 'The Bends.'

Possibly only Radiohead would actually want to draw attention away from that.

But Radiohead has gone its own, often contrary way, particularly in the years since 'OK Computer' threatened to make them superstars. The albums released since - 'Kid A,' 'Amnesiac' and 'Hail to the Thief' - were unrelenting in their experimentalism, their avoidance of standard song structure and anything resembling a hook.

Those elements are present on 'In Rainbows,' but they're being used to construct memorable songs, not subvert them.

Thom Yorke's lyrics, far from the dystopian visions of his recent work (including last year's solo album, 'The Eraser'), seem to trace a broken marriage or relationship through the first two-thirds of the album. 'House of Cards' surveys a dangerous but life-affirming affair while 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place' offers tentative hope of a new love.

'Videotape' features the lyrics perhaps least likely to appear in a Radiohead song: '... today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen.'

Hope shines through in the music as well, with the band trading the claustrophobic playing of recent vintage for a more spacious, open sound. 'Bodysnatchers' references 40 years of bracing guitar rock, while 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' is a blissful slice of pastoral psychedelia.

Download this: The whole thing.

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