If Moon Shaped Pool ends up being Radiohead’s final album (there are rumours) then it’s possible to split the bands career into three distinct acts. Act one is Pablo Honey to OK Computer. The narrative is obvious: Radiohead went from grunge wannabes to the most important band on the planet within the space of these albums. Pablo Honey was an uneven collection of songs with masses of potential, the riffs were there, the weirdness was there, but the sonic landscape in which the album existed was already waning. Which made The Bends, not only a spectacular leap in song writing and quality, but also a deliberate move towards the more timeless British rock sound. It took everyone by surprise: placing high on album of the year lists, and even giving the band their first top five hit with Street Spirit (Fade Out). Then came OK Computer, which turns 20 this year, and deserves a whole article to itself, to finish Radiohead’s first act on top of the world.
The second act comprises the band’s experimental side, with Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief. Despite shocking fans and critics alike with this creative left turn, Kid is rightly held up as a classic album, and may be the bands most influential release. Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief has some of the bands best songs: You and Whose Army, Sail to the Moon, and I Might Be Wrong to name a few, but they are overshadowed by Kid A’s majesty of techno angst and millennial unease. The second act is almost a reverse of the first as Radiohead ended with the weakest release of this period, Hail to the Thief.
Which brings us to the third act, beginning with In Rainbows, easily the most loved album amongst Radiohead fans as it genuinely has something for everyone. Released in 2007 much of the attention was taken up by the way in which the album was unveiled: the studio eliminating pay what you want scheme. It was the band using their fame and prestige to fire a warning shot at record companies, such as EMI who the band had a difficult relationship with.
Whether the album was actually any good or not seemed almost secondary at the time, that it if you weren’t a diehard fan who had been waiting patiently for four bloody years. In Rainbows is a masterpiece not so much an album, or even a collection of songs, it manages to have the same sonic textures that the band pioneered on Kid A, yet also boast the bands most melodious and accessible songs since The Bends, all without feeling like they were taking a backwards step.
Each song has a different mood: 15 Step has the band in a playful, almost trip-hop style, Bodysnatchers is seventies hard-rock by way of alien invasion, Nude is a mournful operatic song that can bring even the most cynical listener to tears, and that’s just the first three songs. The albums crowning achievement is Reckoner, a bona fide classic from a band that writes classics for fun, with its live drums, caressed guitar, and one of Thom Yorke’s most beautiful vocal performances.
2007 was a year filled with exciting follow-ups: Arctic Monkey’s and Arcade Fire released sold second albums, and the year that Nu Rave had its brief moment in the spotlight, but no album defines the year more than In Rainbows.
