I'm not really going to get into the distribution of Radiohead's latest album because that's been pretty well covered every where else. Let's talk about the music.
In Rainbows is the best album Radiohead has ever made...
...this decade.
Honestly though, I had been debating whether or not to leave that sentence as is. There's a part of me that very much wants to make that statement and there are several reasons why. As great as they've been, I'm not totally sure if we've ever heard Thom Yorke and co. sound as relaxed and completely at ease as they do here. That doesn't mean that they've grown complacent either, they can't afford to.
The fact of the matter is there are plenty of other bands/acts that are of equal talent and perhaps even relevance. Wilco, OutKast, Bjork, Beck and the Flaming Lips are all part of Radiohead's particular generation and each have masterpieces of their own. Not to mention up and coming acts like Battles, TV on the Radio, Liars, Animal Collective and My Morning Jacket are all tugging on Radiohead's cape. That doesn't even take into account bands like Coldplay and Muse who both should send Radiohead a check for every album they release (I say this knowingly being a big Muse supporter.)
The point of all this is that as symbolic an album as Kid A was it's very quickly become somewhat dated. The artistic direction the band took with that album was pretty significant and they should be commended for so consciously abandoning that which established their stature in the first place. Kid A and Amnesiac both contain great music but the thing we really love Radiohead for in the first place isn't only great music but great songs. "Idioteque" and "National Anthem" are both pretty awesome but they lose their appeal once you try to find any emotional connection to them. "Optimistic" is good as well but its paranoia was better explored on just about every other Radiohead single that came before it.
Hail to the Thief saw the return to a more song-based album but perhaps one that was about two to four songs too long. It was also the first glimpse we received of a melding of the two sides of Radiohead. It was also the first spark of emotion to return to the band with melancholy being somewhat replaced by political outrage. I think the disappointment surrounding Thom Yorke's underrated solo outing, The Eraser, has more to do with its continued exploration of electronica than actual quality. I think as a companion piece to everything else Radiohead had done, The Eraser sits quite nicely. It's not a world-beater but we probably should not have expected it to be. The album's true importance, however, became significant last Wednesday.
The Eraser just may have been Thom Yorke's way of working on his own electronic tinkerings so that the rest of the band could get back to being just that, a band. As a band they could return to what they do best and better than most others, make songs. That's where the comfort comes in to play.
With this album Radiohead was free to just make an album. Their contract with Capitol had ended, there was no pressure to follow up one of the greatest albums ever and due largely to their own efforts the band's stature had somewhat diminished recently. Somewhere amongst all this Radiohead rememembered how to be a band again. On In Rainbows there's almost a playful tone to the album. Lyrically the song's aren't that different but tonally there's a huge difference. The angst, the anxiety, the paranoia, the melancholy all seem to be somewhat exorcised.
It's hard to explain. This album doesn't feel like any Radiohead album they've ever made but at least it feels like something. It's not cold and distant, it's warm and inviting like a cup of tea. The songs are just as long as they need to be and they're superbly textured. Shut out the rest of the world and listen to In Rainbows with a pair of headphones on and you'll see what I mean.
I still want very badly to say that In Rainbows is the best album Radiohead has ever made but I won't. Instead, I'll re-phrase the sentence with a different word that will lend it a different sort of gravitas. It's a word that seems to be the best fit for everything I said in the previous stanza. More importantly, it's a word that will set In Rainbows apart from the epic stature of either The Bends or OK Computer.
In Rainbows is the most intimate album the band has ever made. And for a band that's based an entire career on NOT being able to connect, that may be the greatest gesture ever.
