I actually think it might be their best. Better than OK Computer, better than Kid A. My reasoning for this is based partly on anecdotal evidence that mostly involves friends who have historically not cared one iota all casually marveling about how good it is. It also considers my nagging suspicion that our tireless and self-conscious canonization of OKC and Kid A have undone some of their magic; when I listen to those records now, I hear our own projections and cultural ghosts just as loudly as I hear the music.
Mark Pytlik on #21 In Rainbows
Pytlik here desediments a kind of presupposition that’s been nagging our critical understanding of Radiohead, and he does it really well. It’s almost a given that Kid A will be in the top-five. It may even be #1. But it’s clear that what we listen to when we listen to Kid A isn’t the music of Kid A. I mean, OK. Sometimes we listen to Kid A. I’m still bowled over by its antithetical aesthetics of analog warm and electronic cool. The simultaneous bathetic dispersion of feeling and its swelling emotional climaxes. But for the most part, listening to Kid A is like excavating the pseudo-ruins of Las Vegas: You get an idea of already having been there and further that there’s no there there. It’s just a series of cultural convergences, a mirage from the heat of so much critical hot air.
The de-canonization of Kid A is actually a neat bit of history repeating itself. Look at what Mark Richardson said about #2 album [of course OK Computer was #1—a little bit of foreshadowing?] of the 90s, Loveless:
Is there anything new that can possibly be said about Loveless? Any stone as yet unturned? So much has been written about this album, and so much of it reads the same: “It’s about tension, noise vs. melody, ugliness vs. beauty… It’s a return to the womb… It foregrounds the background and favors texture over development… Kevin Shields is Brian Wilson… Smart went crazy…” It’s all true, of course. There’s no arguing with any of that, just as there’s little reason to talk about this album which so many people love. When it comes to Loveless , we understand each other so well that we nod and grunt like we’re standing in front of Hank Hill’s house. For me, it’s been that way for some time: Seeing the letters “M”, “B” and “V” next to each other in a review of another band’s album is enough to get said record on my “music to check out” list. I suspect I’m not alone.
You get the feeling that one requires university funding to continuously talk about such a well-understood, universally praised piece of art.
My favorite two Radiohead albums are Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows. I enjoy HttT so much for several reasons, all of which are personal: It was the soundtrack to an especially tumultuous summer; I saw Radiohead on this tour in London on Thanksgiving and it was the best concert I’ve ever seen; its heavy-handed politics are a reminder of just how shitty 2003 was. The reviews, from what I remember, were universally middling. They said the album sounded unfinished. The early live versions were larger-sounding. The heavy-handed politics. Whatever. The album is still alive for me, and I like spending time with it.
I listened to In Rainbows on repeat for the first week I had it. I think I stayed home from work the morning the download code was released. I remember listening to it and I had the feeling that there was no ingress to the album. It was isomorphic to itself, all sheen and polish with no rough spots to leverage open.
Even now, I have no idea what it’s about. I read an interview recently where the band was talking about how exhausting it was to make In Rainbows because it’s difficult to make a suite of songs that all share a sound. I’m totally eluded by the sonic sameness of the album. Even as I say it’s somewhat homogenous in that there’s no obvious musical or discursive theme, I would say it’s a disparate-sounding album. Or as disparate as any Radiohead album is, since they’d mastered the form back in 1995. I mean, ferchrissakes, it’s got “Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any)” on it! Every song stands out as a highlight while simultaneously incorporating itself into a more directed whole. The album format functions dialectically on a primal level—since its medium is music—and on a secondary level—due to time, sequencing, and hermeneutics. I can think of several albums that surely rank from 20-1 on the Pitchfork list, but I feel confident in saying that In Rainbows is the best pure rock album of the decade.
