Stuff You Can Sing: Radiohead Comes Home
by Mark Schiebe
Works discussed in this essay:
- In Rainbows by Radiohead (self-released)
I was perplexed by the early response from some Radiohead fans that the group’s seventh album, In Rainbows, released on CD in the U.S. on January 1st, represented a return to an earlier style, a relief from the relentless experimentalism and introspection of the trio of albums that began with Kid A. But then I got to thinking about it and remembered that when anything really new sounding comes along it is comforting to fall back on old assumptions. There is a story that goes something like this:
Once upon a time there was a great rock band and after they produced a rock masterpiece that everyone could agree was great (OK Computer), they quit playing rock music and their fans divided between those who thought they were on the cutting edge of something new (where they belonged) and those who thought they just stopped writing good songs. For those in the second camp, In Rainbows is a welcome return to “hummable stuff.” The band had to deal with a lot of fame and accolades and went through a phase that we were supposed to dig and find “compelling” but it was really just boring. Now they’ve returned to what made them great.
Radiohead circa Hail to the Theif (2003). From left: Ed, Jonny, Thom, Phil and Colin
There are two problems with this story (parodic oversimplification aside). One is that the new album continues the band’s experimentation with the world of electronica: with new fusions of electronic and acoustic sounds, with loops, synthetic beats, ambient effects produced by different tape speeds, new combinations of noise and song. Basically, they pick up where they left off with 2003’s Hail to the Thief. The second problem is that the “prettier” and more pop-sounding stuff on this album doesn’t really sound like the “pretty” stuff they did in the 90’s, when they were forging the unique, guitar-driven rock of The Bends and OK Computer. Instead, In Rainbows follows in the wake of its electronica-inspired predecessors and at the same time it is a step to the side, moving into pop territory the band had previously shied away from.
“15 Steps,” the title of the album’s first track, refers both to its uneven meter (the rhythmic units at the song’s opening are divided into three “fives”) and vocalist Thom Yorke’s ominous line “15 steps then a sheer drop,” a warning which doesn’t seem to refer to anything specific. The guitar sound most prominently featured on the album, lightly overdriven and very present in the mix, enters after an opening minute of the drums’n’bassish “15” and Yorke’s vocals. The arpeggiated guitar riff and electronic snare sound give way to organ and a new darting bass line about halfway through. Soft crackle morphs into warm glow as the organ hangs ghost-like over the music. The track, like much of the album, is deceptively layered, yet somehow gives off a minimalist vibe despite the array of synthetic sounds buzzing around and through the vocal melody, from primitive video game “blasters” to light-speed dashes through channels of dead air.
“Bodysnatchers” is typical of how the band uses the studio to create new fusions of conventional rock formulas and electronic soundscapes. The song’s opening riff features a propulsive, off-kilter rhythm, but the instrument it is initially played on is distorted beyond the point of recognition. If it is a guitar, the “attack” of the notes (the initial sound made by the pick hitting the strings) has been mixed out and something like a blob comes at us. Beginning with Kid A, the band has really experimented with the “edges” of their sound, infinitely varying their levels of attack. The sound of “Bodysnatchers” is uncompromisingly synthetic: something like being hit with a pillow of metal. Perhaps this is reflected in Yorke’s lines “You killed the sound/ Removed backbone/ A pale imitation/ With the edges sawn off.” “Bodysnatchers,” like many other of the bands’ songs, is vertigo-inducing: sounds seem to come at us backwards as well as forwards. This is nothing new as Radiohead has practiced mixing in reverse tracks at least since “Everything in its Right Place” (Kid A) and Amnesiac’s “Like Spinning Plates” is a version of the earlier “I Will” played backwards.
The third cut on the album, the haunted ballad “Nude,” features Yorke’s characteristic aching and tender vocals, as he revisits the anti-utopian strain of earlier works like “2+2=5” (Hail to the Thief) in the lines “Don’t get any big ideas/ They’re not going to happen” and comments on the “white noise” of our media-driven cultural excesses: “You paint yourself white/ And fill up with noise/ But there’ll be something missing.” One thinks of the pleading cry “Hey man slow down/ Idiot slow down” from “The Tourist” (OK Computer) and the ecstatic chant “Here I’m allowed/ Everything all the time” from the “Idioteque” (Kid A). In the songs’ final verse, Yorke adds “You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking” setting up a pattern of sexual imagery to be followed up later in “House of Cards” and “All I Need.”
“All I Need” is a striking departure from anything the band has done, as the music and words combine to evoke a menacing mood reminiscent of Trent Reznor. After airily opening with what sounds like a mixture of strings and an electronic chorus, the slow groove is established by a synthetic bass over acoustic drums. Yorke half whispers, half growls “I am all the days that you choose to ignore/ You are all I need/ You are all I need/ I’m in the middle of your picture/ Lying in the reeds.” The song eventually fades into oblivion when a piano sustain pedal and a cymbal sound combine to wash over everything and drown out Yorke’s receding plea “It’s all wrong/ It’s all right.” Despite this, the stripped-down sound of the band (comprising the majority of the song) and pent-up energy of the vocals may well represent the beginnings of a new direction for them. For this listener, “All I Need” is a special track on the album, and represents an avenue Yorke and his mates would do well to continue to explore.
If In Rainbows is indeed more “hummable” than its immediate predecessors, it isn’t because Radiohead is “returning to their roots.” It is because the vocals of the front man, the band’s greatest strength, are nudged closer to the center of the mix again. It is probably also a sign that the band’s listeners, even those who favor the early work, have had their ears trained and stretched by the later work. One thing is for sure, the melodic and sonic experiments, continue to evolve unabated, which is a good thing.
