Tom Lynch

With all the revolutionary hoopla surrounding its improbable release, it would be easy to let the content of "In Rainbows" take a backseat to the echo effect it will have on the music industry.

But, it can’t go unmentioned. There are many, many Radiohead supporters who adore the band’s ability to shock its fans with every move, musical or otherwise, and the band’s decision to essentially give away its seventh record is no exception. Most applaud the move—as the preferred method of music purchasing slides further and further towards file-downloading, it makes sense for the British innovators to make the first move. Of course, the band’s also offering an $85 bundle of tangible goodies promised to be at your door by Christmas, as well as a "traditional" "In Rainbows" CD release come 2008, a product that will only be acquired by diehard fans who desperately need everything the five-piece produces.

The pay-what-you-want concept is undeniably cool, but, let’s face it, the band knows what its doing. There were early reports that "In Rainbows" sales had reached 1.2 million, and the customer was paying ten American dollars, on average. The numbers have since been called "exaggerated" by the Radiohead camp, but it’s clear they’ve pocketed a pretty penny, without having to share with, well, anybody.

My one objection to Radiohead’s shell-shocking maneuver is that it pushes forward the death march of record stores, as the indies, the ones that would most likely sell the majority of "In Rainbows" if it was released normally, miss out on all the business. If there is one saving grace from the business half of the "music business," it’s the concept of the record store, and Radiohead’s helped drive another nail into the worldwide coffin. I remember, specifically, every time I picked up the "new" Radiohead record. "Pablo Honey" was at Irving Park’s Rolling Stones, in the daytime, after I begged my father to drive me there so I could get it (I think I bought Hole’s "Live Through This" the same day). "The Bends" was at Harlem Irving Plaza’s Music Recyclery. "OK Computer" was on its release day at midnight, again at Rolling Stones. "Kid A" was at a lonely little record store in Normal, IL, midnight again, when I was in college. "Amnesiac" at the same place. "Hail to the Thief," release day, back in Chicago at Rolling Stones once again. And while I’m sure I’ll always remember my acquiring of "In Rainbows," I’m afraid it’s for all the wrong reasons.

But the most important thing, something that’s been pushed aside, is that "In Rainbows" is a brilliant record, unlike anything the band’s done thus far (what else is new?) and surely to be fully recognized at some point in the years to come as one the decade’s true masterpieces. The heavyweight cultural power of each Radiohead release is suffocating at times, as pretty much everyone freaks out at the idea of new material from the band, but "In Rainbows" is more than what it could’ve ever been built up to be, and, unlike "Hail to the Thief," doesn’t leave you cold.

My favorites? "Nude," "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi," "All I Need," "Reckoner," "Videotape." I wish the band didn’t cut the third verse/second chorus out of "Nude" that was there in bootleg versions circa 1997, but, hey, you can’t have everything. And Yorke’s lyrics in "Fishes" are his best in a long time: "Everybody leaves/If they get the chance/And this is my chance."

The suicide letter that concludes the record, in the haunting "Videotape": "No matter what happens now/You shouldn’t be afraid/Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen."

And the voluptuous melody of Nude’s once-recited mantra: "Now that you’ve found it, it’s gone/Now that you feel it, you don’t/You’ve gone off the rails."

I admire this record more than any other released this year, mostly because Radiohead takes a big chance by, essentially, not taking many chances. Some like to argue that certain songs "sound like they could’ve been" on this record or that record, but that sort of thought is useless and lazy. "In Rainbows" is just the latest singular work from a band that, somehow, in a way that will never fully be understood and thus will always be debated, has a continuity between its records despite consistently reinventing itself.

As exciting as it is to hear new records every day, I sometimes forget what it’s like to get new music from a band that I was a fan of first, critical only later. "In Rainbows" is bold, beautiful ten-song work of art. That much is easy. What it will mean to us in ten years, five years even, is as mysterious as Nigel Godrich’s acoustic-synth-string concoction he’s developed for the band, or whatever the hell it is.

So enjoy "In Rainbows" now, for as long as you can, because these things fade, these records change for us as we get older, time blends, more albums are born, and even Radiohead moves on.

Rainbows only stay in the sky for so long.

(2007-10-19)

Also by Tom Lynch

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