Understatement of the year: Radiohead is the least complacent rock band in music today.
Many other bands would be happy-ecstatic, in fact-to achieve the kind of success and international fan base that Radiohead has and simply sit on that. For reference: see 95 percent of bands currently making albums almost indistinguishable from each other. Radiohead could walk into almost any venue in America or England and sell out in minutes. However, the British quintet has never failed to break its own mold.
For their seventh album, In Rainbows, Radiohead was no longer under contract with their label, EMI. Instead of signing a contract outright, they decided to do something new and unprecedented for a band with Radiohead’s level of influence.
A post on their official website on Oct. 1 stated that they would be releasing a new album only from their website on Oct. 10. More importantly, once visitors went to the official website to preorder the album, they were greeted with a question mark next to a blank price field. Those who clicked on the question mark were shown a rather blunt explanation that said, “It’s up to you.”
This sharp new direction serves two purposes. First, it cuts through the separation between the band and their fans that record companies so regularly keep.
This change was drastic enough for TIME.com to quote a European record exec as saying, “This feels like yet another death knell. If the best band in the world doesn’t want a part of us, I’m not sure what’s left for this business.”
Instead of an album sitting in limbo in a factory or a boardroom, Radiohead was able to release the album exactly when they wanted to: quickly. Radiohead will also be able to keep much more of the profits made as opposed to what is normally available through record company contracts. However, something about a band offering their latest album for free (if you don’t want to pay) hints that Radiohead didn’t make this move just for the money.
A second purpose is to serve curiosity, not a new venture for Radiohead. Anyone who knows Radiohead’s albums knows that the band doesn’t like staying in one place too long, and cutting out a record company takes experimenting to include the medium on which their music is published.
According to Johnny Greenwood, it wasn’t about taking down the industry but being “right for us and feeling bored of what we were doing before.”
What’s more, the album delivers. Even though 1997’s OK Computer has been hailed as one of the greatest rock albums of all time, and the band’s later electronic-fueled releases, from the moody Amnesiac to the heavy Hail to the Thief, have all been successful, its latest album is decidedly different.
The electronic sounds have been toned down to give way to a more minimal instrumental sound. This reduction, coming from other bands, might smell of laziness. In Radiohead’s collective hands, however, it is still graceful and deftly layered. The loops are gone; in their wake are the distinct lines of the longly underappreciated bass of Greenwood’s older brother Colin and drumwork of Phil Selway.
Though lead singer Thom Yorke still sings melodies much as he has for many years, his high sustain seems fresh, juxtaposed with the newly exposed rhythm section that is at times upbeat and punchy and, at other times, groove-laden and smooth, in addition to the now understated and beautiful guitar and instrumentation of Johnny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien. The nostalgic guitar licks on tracks such as “Bodysnatchers” give way to soft orchestrations and rhythm on tracks such as “Nude” and “Videotape.”
It’s not OK Computer, but Radiohead retains its renown as the best out there.
