Discovery

I’ve long maintained that I have to listen to an album at least five times before I can begin to form an opinion about it containing any merit, unless the album clearly sucks, but in the case of today’s milestone Radiohead release, I feel I can make an exception. The following are my thoughts track-by-track while listening to the sure-to-be-generation-defining new record, though I post these more for the purposes of entertainment and sorting out my own thoughts than as any kind of actual evaluation, plus Blagg already pretty much summed it up in his post yesterday. Besides, who can make a fully accurate assesment of a cd on one listen?

Leave your “In Rainbows” first impressions in the comments!

Track 1 - “15 Step”

Whoa, M.I.A. alert… ok, never mind, it’s definitely Radiohead. Still a mostly unsynthesized Thom Yorke, that’s probably a good sign. Better hear some more instruments soon, don’t want this to turn into a sequel to “The Eraser.” Or just BE “The Eraser”, how disappointing would that be? Or just the movie “Eraser,” with Arnold Schwarzenegger? That would’ve been awesome.

Ah, here we go. Some guitars. Some wacky guitars! Guess they’re not really that wacky, not by ‘Head standards. That’s what I call them, ‘Head. Saying the full name isn’t that cool anymore. Actually ‘Head isn’t cool anymore, now that I typed it onto the blog. I’m gonna come up with a new name for them and not type it here. Ok, done. Also, I thought the song was called “In Step” until just this second. Off to a good start!

Track 2 - “Bodysnatchers”

Alright, kickin’ it into high gear early, leading off with two up-tempo songs. Pretty standard, cool riff, they’ve got the grindy-sounding thingamajig on the guitar, and Thom Yorke sounds about 8% more pissed than usual, which still isn’t really pissed at all. This song probably rocks live, too, could even be a concert opener. It really, really has that “Zak and Sara”, “Planet of Sound” kind of “second song on the album” quality to it, too. Way less repetitive than “Sit Down. Stand Up.”, fortunately, plus it isn’t constantly telling me two conflicting verbs that I should be doing.

Track 3 - “Nude”

(Eric Clapton voice): Now I’d like to slow things down a bit. Is the song being a little stripped down sort of a reflection of the title? No, not at all? Great, there’s my first nerdy conspiracy theory, someone copy and paste that onto a message board. Kind of follows the same cadence as “Wolf at the Door,” doesn’t it? Only he’s not rapping? I can’t imagine Yorke won’t play this as an encore at some point with only him onstage with an acoustic guitar. In fact, that’s probably happening this second, as I type this. Even while they were recording it, the guys doing the strings were like “ah well, it’s been fun, but this was clearly the last time we’re ever gonna play on this song.”

Track 4 - “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”

Catchy title… do I smell a hit?? Pretty damn catchy, actually, and I like the Television simple, harmonized-guitars thing going on. Not really anything super nuts on the album yet, maybe the last 6 tracks are just going to be swing tunes? Oh! titular line sighting, “I get eaten by the world… weird fishes.” Now he’s repeating ‘weird fishes’ a couple times, they must be pretty weird. Oh, it’s over? No part where he starts singing “it’s Arpeggi now, forget the weird fishes”? Either way, pretty sweet track. Four for four, fellas! The “meeting the girlfriend’s parents” tension of a new Radiohead album is beginning to subside.

Track 5 - “All I Need”

Hmm, bass time. Synthy bass, too, sounds a little like slo-mo Muse in the background. Ooh, dinging instrument! Those always make songs better! I’m not being a smartass - see: Arcade Fire. Maybe they can add a female backup vocalist and have her run over to a Glockenspiel during concerts to play the dingie part!

Track 6 - “Faust Arp”

Another great title. Acoustic guitar, interesting. Sounds like Beck’s “Sea Change” string section going on there, too. Way more subdued Yorke in this song, but is there a spot for him to take a breath? Sounds like they edited out breaks in the vocals?Interesting chord changes, too, but still nothing super ridiculous. Maybe I was expecting something more like Blagg’s writeup? Whoa, over already? Shortie. Both literally and in the complimentary rap way.

Track 7 - “Reckoner”

Tambourine time! We’re covering all the instruments on this motha! I’ll be disappointed if the album ends before we get to tubas and French Horns. I guess French Horns kind of jumped the shark with “Tommy,” didn’t they? That was so long ago, though, that shark’s been dead for years. Come on, Radiohead, bring back the French Horn, it’s up to you! Is Yorke gonna be doing this entire song falsetto? Still not a bad track, but probably won’t be making it onto any of my mixes any time soon. And we all know how important that is to bands.

Track 8 - “House of Cards”

Still keeping it mellow, interesting. Those first two tracks were kind of misleadingly upbeat, I was about to proclaim this as Radiohead’s first summer cd (blasting “Exit Music” while cruisin’ in a convertible does not, in fact, work).

Those echoey people shouting in the background on Kid A appear to have returned. I’m picturing a bunch of people that look like the Munch “Scream” painting just kind of chilling in the background of the studio, and Nigel Godrich lets them stay cause he wants to hear what they sound like, but then they just kind of hang out and no one has the heart to kick them out. Yorke sure does say “House of Cards” a lot in this song, doesn’t he? More like “House of Choruses”, am I right?

Track 9 - “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”

The acoustic guitar keeps on rolling, even sounds a bit like the “2+2=5″ intro. Ah, here we go, drums are back, band appears to be in a better mood. More synthy sounding people in the background… pretty cool instrumental, though, lot going on here. Not really sure what to compare this song to, besides, I guess, the other songs on this album. I have a feeling I’ll end up enjoying this song the more I hear it, might just be suffering from new album anticipation fatigue at the moment.

Track 10 - “Videotape”

Piano for the closer. Kind of cute, actually, and refreshingly unselfconscious… In general, I’m kind of surprised about how well Radiohead seems to never really feel like they’re pandering, or even worse, deliberately not pandering with stuff that’s just intentionally inaccessible. It’s also kind of sad, this knowledge that this’ll be the last new Radiohead I hear for years. It’s kind of like the last five minutes of the “Lost” season finale; it’s really engaging, but you’re still partially tuned out, knowing that whatever thunderbolt that’s about to hit is gonna have to tide you over for 57 months. But overall, a good capper, if not likely a live showstopper.

Overall, though, I’m gonna give this album a thumbs up, but I’ll need another week’s worth of listening to come up with an exact, meaningful decimal rating, then another couple months to change my opinion about everything I’ve written here. The first three tracks did, in a very loose way, mirror “Hail to the Thief”, with an attention-grabbing opener, a sort of circular, catchy and still up-tempo second track, and a much slower, albeit grander, string-filled third track. It did seem more like an album than “Thief,” though, which in retrospect still sounds like a collection of hit-and-miss individual songs; having ten tracks and being recorded in eight minutes may have helped this fact. Also, now that we have a full new album to buffer our reluctant critiques, can we now finally agree that “Hail to the Thief” is a really, really stupid name for an album? Like, George Lucas stupid? Good, I’m glad.

If you made it through my stream of consciousness, I salute you. Please leave your own “In Rainbows” thoughts in the comments!