The Lincoln Log

It’s been a decade since OK Computer made Radiohead big enough to ignore their marketing advisors. With the release of “In Rainbows”, they couldn’t make that anymore clear.

Just look at its record label and retail price: there isn’t one, and there isn’t one. In a do-it-yourself fashion, Radiohead have decided to release “In Rainbows” initially as an MP3 download (available at inrainbows.com.) And the cost to download it is up to you. For example, if you want it for free, you’ll get it for free or if you want it for a million bucks, you’ll get it for a million bucks including transaction fees.

Is this pricing scheme profitable? For Radiohead, the incorrigible contrarians, it wouldn’t really matter. Record sales are inevitably declining whereas the concert business is booming. With their

prestige and absurdly large fan base, “In Rainbows” may prove to be an economical windfall. They could easily go on an international tour and sell out wide-stage arenas within days to counter any losses, and it seems they are intent in doing so.

“We plan to tour next year, starting in May through to probably the end of the year,” states manager Bryce Edg to Billboard.com. He also mentions that “they toured last summer almost for creative reasons, definitely not for financial reasons.. the next set of touring will be slightly larger-scale venues.”

Nevertheless, it’s not about the money. In explaining why you get to decide the price, guitarist Jonny Greenwood says to Rolling Stone magazine, “It’s fun to make people stop for a few seconds and think about what music is worth, and that’s just an interesting question to ask people.”

In explaining why they released the album so unconventionally, Greenwood says, “Partly just to get it out quickly, so everyone would hear it at the same time, and partly because it was an experiment that felt worth trying, really.”

Perhaps partly also to give greedy record labels a kick in the ass, as frontman Thom Yorke in an interview of TIME magazine puts it. “It probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say @#$% you to this decaying business model.”

Other than the acoustic drums emulating their electronic counterpart, “In Rainbows” shows Radiohead back with a more human sound. That is, the musical experimentations with musical machines have lessened and the music returns to an accessibility and consistency not found since their landmark OK Computer.

The album begins with clashing drums in ‘15 Step’, also featuring jazzy bass lines, spacey atmospherics, and children going, “Yay!” The up tempo plucking and strumming of guitar strings in tracks like ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ and ‘Jigsaw Falling into Place’ contrast well with the mellowness in the hypnotizing ‘Videotape’ or fan-favorite ‘Nude’.

Overall, “In Rainbows” is another reason why Radiohead deserve the love and praise they received from fans and critics share alike. It is not an album from a band scratching their heads and wondering, “What do we do now?” Radiohead know what they’re doing; mixing a right amount of simplicity and complexity, “In Rainbows” is arguably their most mature and beautiful album to date.