In Rainbows
In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was self-released on 10 October 2007 as a download, followed by a retail release internationally through XL Recordings on 3 December 2007 and in North America through TBD Records on 1 January 2008. It was Radiohead's first release after their recording contract with EMI ended with their album Hail to the Thief.
Work on In Rainbows began in early 2005. In 2006, after their sessions with the producer Spike Stent proved fruitless, Radiohead re-enlisted their longtime producer, Nigel Godrich. They recorded in the country houses Halswell House and Tottenham House, the Hospital Club in London, and their studio in Oxfordshire. The lyrics are less political and more personal than previous Radiohead albums.
Radiohead released In Rainbows on their website without prior publicity and allowed fans to set their own price, saying this liberated them from conventional promotional formats and removed barriers to audiences. It was the first such release by a major act and drew international media attention. Many praised Radiohead for challenging old models and finding new ways to connect with fans, while others felt it set a dangerous precedent at the expense of less successful artists.
In Rainbows was promoted with the singles "Jigsaw Falling into Place" and "Nude", along with webcasts, music videos, competitions and a worldwide tour. The retail release topped the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200, and by October 2008 it had sold more than three million copies worldwide. It was the best-selling vinyl record of 2008 and is certified platinum in the UK and Canada and gold in the US, Belgium and Japan. At the 51st Grammy Awards, In Rainbows won for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package and was nominated for Album of the Year, while "House of Cards" was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Rock Song. In Rainbows was named one of the best albums of the year and the decade by various publications, and Rolling Stone included it in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Background
In 2004, after finishing the world tour for their sixth studio album, Hail to the Thief, Radiohead went on hiatus. As Hail to the Thief was the final album released under their record contract with EMI, they had no contractual obligation to release new material. The drummer, Philip Selway, said Radiohead still wanted to create music, but took a break to focus on other areas of their lives, and that the end of their contract provided a natural point to pause and reflect. The New York Times described Radiohead as "by far the world's most popular unsigned band".In 2005, the singer and songwriter, Thom Yorke, appeared on the web series From the Basement, performing the future In Rainbows tracks "Videotape", "Down is the New Up" and "Last Flowers". He released his first solo album, The Eraser, in 2006. The lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, also composed his first solo works, the soundtracks Bodysong and There Will Be Blood.
Recording
In March 2005, Radiohead began writing and recording in their Oxfordshire studio. They initially chose to work without their longtime producer, Nigel Godrich. According to the guitarist Ed O'Brien, "We were a little bit in the comfort zone... We've been working together for 10 years, and we all love one another too much." The bassist, Colin Greenwood, later denied this, saying Godrich had been busy working with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck. At the Ether festival in July 2005, Jonny Greenwood and Yorke performed a version of the future In Rainbows track "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" with the London Sinfonietta orchestra and the Arab Orchestra of Nazareth.Regular recording sessions began that August, with Radiohead updating fans on their progress intermittently on their new blog, Dead Air Space. The sessions were slow, and the band struggled to regain confidence. According to Yorke, "We spent a long time in the studio just not going anywhere, wasting our time, and that was really, really frustrating." They attributed their slow progress to a lack of momentum after their break, the lack of deadline and producer, and the fact that all the members had become fathers.
In December 2005, Radiohead hired the producer Spike Stent, who had worked with artists including U2 and Björk, to help them work through their material. Stent listened to their self-produced work and agreed it was subpar. The collaboration with Stent was unsuccessful.
Concerned by the lack of progress, Radiohead's management suggested they break up. Brian Message, a partner at their management company, said later: "You have to be honest if it's not working. You have to have passion about what you do." O'Brien said Radiohead decided to continue because "when you got beyond all the shit and the bollocks, the core of these songs were really good". He felt In Rainbows could be the final Radiohead record, and was motivated by a desire to secure their legacy as a great band.
In an effort to break the deadlock, Radiohead decided to tour for the first time since 2004. They performed in Europe and North America in May and June 2006, and returned to Europe for several festivals in August, performing many new songs. According to Yorke, the tour forced them to finish writing the songs. He said: "Rather than it being a nightmare, it was really, really good fun, because suddenly everyone is being spontaneous and no one's self-conscious because you're not in the studio... It felt like being 16 again."
Nigel Godrich sessions
After the tour, Radiohead discarded the recordings made with Stent and re-enlisted Godrich. According to Yorke, Godrich gave them "a walloping kick up the arse". To focus them, Godrich transferred their rhythm tracks to a single track, where they could not be further altered. According to Colin, "The idea was to make us commit to something... It was as if we were sampling ourselves. And when you mash sounds together like that they cross-pollinate, they marinade, they interact with each other... They have little sonic babies." Yorke said the band attempted to create "a sense of disembodiment" by using elements from different versions of songs. For example, "All I Need" was assembled from takes from four different versions.For three weeks in October 2006, Radiohead worked at Tottenham House in Marlborough, Wiltshire, a country house scouted by Godrich. The band members lived in caravans, as the building was in a state of disrepair. Yorke described it as "derelict in the stricter sense of the word, where there's holes in the floor, rain coming through the ceilings, half the window panes missing... There were places you just basically didn't go. It definitely had an effect. It had some pretty strange vibes." The sessions were productive and the band recorded "Jigsaw Falling into Place" and "Bodysnatchers". Yorke wrote on Dead Air Space that Radiohead had "started the record properly now... starting to get somewhere I think. Finally." Radiohead used several guitars borrowed from the guitarist Johnny Marr, including a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top and a 1964 Gibson SG. Colin contracted temporary hearing loss and tinnitus brought upon by faulty headphones.
In December 2006, sessions took place at Halswell House in Taunton, and Godrich's studio at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, London, where Radiohead recorded "Videotape" and completed "Nude". In January, Radiohead resumed recording in their Oxfordshire studio and started to post photos, lyrics, videos and samples of new songs on Dead Air Space. In June, having finished recording, Godrich posted clips of songs on Dead Air Space.
Feeling Hail to the Thief was overlong, Radiohead wanted their next album to be concise. Yorke said: "I believe in the rock album as an artistic form of expression. In Rainbows is a conscious return to this form of 45-minute statement... Our aim was to describe in 45 minutes, as coherently and conclusively as possible, what moves us." They settled on 10 songs, saving the rest for In Rainbows Disk 2, the bonus disc included in the limited edition. Yorke recorded "Last Flowers", included on the bonus disc, in the Eraser sessions. In Rainbows was mastered by Bob Ludwig in July 2007 at Gateway Mastering, New York City. Godrich said process of making In Rainbows had been an opportunity to "reconnect" for the band members, who he said had a "particular chemistry".
Music
In Rainbows incorporates elements of art rock, experimental rock, alternative rock, art pop, and electronica. O'Brien said Radiohead were hesitant to create an "epic" record, which they felt had negative associations of stadium rock. However, he conceded that "epic is also about beauty, like a majestic view, and what we did on this record was to allow the songs to be epic when they have to be". He cited "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" as an example of a song that was "obviously epic in scope". Yorke said Radiohead considered In Rainbows "our classic album, our Transformer, our Revolver, our Hunky Dory".Yorke said that, unlike Hail to the Thief, there was "very little anger" in In Rainbows: "It's in no way political, or, at least, doesn't feel that way to me. It very much explores the ideas of transience. It starts in one place and ends somewhere completely different." In another interview, Yorke said the album was about mortality and the realisation that he could die at any moment. O'Brien described the lyrics as universal and about "being human", with no political agenda. The title In Rainbows was chosen because it was open-ended and not provocative or polarising, and reflected Donwood's artwork.
The opening track, "15 Step", features a quintuple meter and a handclap rhythm inspired by "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches. Radiohead recorded cheers by a group of children from the Matrix Music School & Arts Centre in Oxford. "Bodysnatchers", which Yorke described as a combination of Wolfmother, Neu! and "dodgy hippy rock", was recorded when he was in a period of "hyperactive mania". The lyrics were inspired by Victorian ghost stories, the 1972 novel The Stepford Wives and Yorke's feeling of "your physical consciousness trapped without being able to connect fully with anything else". "Weird Fishes / Arpeggi" features a phasing technique influenced by the American composer Steve Reich.
On "All I Need", Jonny Greenwood wanted to capture the white noise generated by a band playing loudly in a room, which never occurs in the studio. His solution was to have a string section play every note of the scale, blanketing the frequencies. Radiohead recorded a version of "Nude" during the OK Computer sessions, but discarded it. This version featured a Hammond organ, a "straighter" feel, and different lyrics. For In Rainbows, Colin Greenwood wrote a new bassline, which Godrich said "transformed it from something very straight into something that had much more of a rhythmic flow". The title of "Faust Arp" tributes the krautrock band Faust.
"Reckoner" developed while Radiohead were working on another song, "FeelingPulledApartByHorses". It features Yorke's falsetto, "frosty, clanging" percussion, a "meandering" guitar line, piano, and strings arranged by Jonny Greenwood. Yorke described it as "a love song... sort of". He said the line "because we separate like ripples on a blank shore" was the centre of In Rainbows, and that "everything's leading to that point and then going away from that point". He described "House of Cards" as "mellow and summery", and likened it to the 1968 instrumental "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac. Mike Diver of Drowned in Sound described "Jigsaw Falling into Place" as a "bass-propelled pop-rock head-bobber". The lyrics were inspired by the chaos witnessed by Yorke when drinking in Oxford, a combination of elation and "a much darker side".
Yorke said composing "Videotape" was "absolute agony", and that it "went through every possible parameter". He initially wanted it to be a "post-rave trance track", similar to the music of Surgeon, and said Jonny Greenwood was "obsessed" with shifting the start of the bar. Radiohead performed "Videotape" in a more conventional rock arrangement on tour in 2006, with Selway's drums building to a climax. For the album, Godrich and Greenwood reduced the song to a minimal piano ballad with percussion from a Roland TR-909 drum machine.