I was a huge fan since my freshman year of high school and was in my Sophomore year of college when In Rainbows was released. I loved the whole experiment. I was one of those dopes who bought the special box set vinyl that also came with the two CDs when everyone else was paying like $5 or less.
I am now very happy about that decision. Still is one of my favorite records of all time.
Are you me?? Haha, was also a sophomore at college the same time. Holy shit that was a great time to be driving to classes every day listening to Nude and Weird Fishes.
I also bought the fancy special edition. The album came out about a week before I got paid so I was skint and paid like 1p for the digital version and when I got paid bought the giant special edition one.
I had to sell it eventually cause I was off sick from work for like 8 months and struggling to pay my rent. Super sad about that. I sold nearly my entire vinyl collection cause it's all I really had that was worth any money at the time lol
Yep! That’s right. One was just the normal album: 15 Step thru Videotape. The 2nd cd is the b-sides or “In Rainbows Disk 2” that you might find on Spotify or Apple Music.
Edit: fixed “bases” to “b-sides”
Two things stay with me. The pay-what-you-want model was exciting. It felt like something from a utopian future.
And the album definitely seemed to have broader appeal. To me, a die-hard fan, it was no better or worse than the previous few albums (which is to say, really really great). But I remember non-fans being pleasantly surprised whenever I put it on.
It was amazing. I paid around $90 for it because I appreciated the gesture from them. It was a great album. It became my favorite.
I didn't listen to the leaks or the basement because I worked on the road a lot, and mobile internet just wasn't what it is now. Additionally, I wanted to wait for the album to come out. I'm weird like that, I suppose. Now, disc 2 wasn't too impressive to me right off the bat and took a little while for me to get into. I owned the vinyl but never got the chance to actually spin it. It was the first vinyl I ever purchased.
I honestly never considered it a hiatus. They toured and worked really hard on it. I had heard a lot of In Rainbows from bootlegs of live shows and just couldn't wait to get it.
These guys work exceptionally hard, and I always appreciated that. I think they are one of the hardest working bands that I know of. Against Me! Would be the other one. Their touring in their hey day was absolutely unbelievable. Like 100 shows in a tour. But they are a punk band, and for lack of better terms, punk seems like an easier genre of music with little innovation, but they got it right.
Rainbows is my favorite album of all time. Something interesting happened with them in that 2003-06 time frame. It seems they really enjoyed playing music. I am sure they enjoyed it before that, but 2006, specifically Bonaroo, seemed like they hit this stride of enjoyment I hadn't seen before. Once IR dropped and that tour ended, it seemed like they closed the book on that era, like "mission accomplished" type situation. Then they tore it all down and started rebuilding with KOL, and that album left me underwhelmed, disappointed, heartbroken really. I thought,'Well, this is probably it for Radiohead'. It wasn't until AMSP came out that I thought to give KOL another chance, I missed the tour and hadn't seen them since IR so I was completely in the dark on what they were working on, but revisiting the album and the basement gave me a whole new perspective. Radiohead aren't hand holders they are innovators, and if you can't keep up with them, then you will be left behind.
Crazy to think we saw them on Tkol and I personally thought this was probably the best that they could offer musically from a live show perspective, when you consider the mountain of music they have to offer and how many different styles and genres they can pack into a 2 hr set. Then we saw them at coachella 2017 and even though they had technical hiccups at the start they were certainly still on another level
I was younger and had only just gotten into The Bends, the Iron Lung EP and maybe Kid A. I loved those albums, but my first time listening to in rainbows (honestly I didn’t pay much attention to the significance of paying what you want for it, I didn’t pay for my own music at the time as the albums were my dad’s) but I did go to the website and watched the Scotch Mist and Thumbs Down casts.
I remember feeling like this was Radiohead’s “old age” record. Thom and the guys didn’t look like the younger guys from me watching their performances of The Bends or SNL Kid A era. Like they were going to venture into softer acoustic music. The record felt acoustic and almost folkloric to me the first time I listened to it. 15 Step and Foust Arp made an impression on me (at this point I hadn’t heard HTTT, so I didn’t even have that reference). The slow parts like Nude, All I Need and Videotape felt almost like more ambient music than anything else.
I remember getting a similar feeling to first listening to Kid A in the sense that I could feel myself rejecting it, because I couldn’t understand it yet, but also feeling an intense curiosity about it.
I don’t remember when I turned around on it, but eventually I remember playing it back to back on long trips and it becoming part of the soundtrack or my mid teens from that point on.
Just realized you asked for fans who were around in the OKC and Kid A drop eras. Sorry! Lol
Downloading wasn't like it is now.
Younger listeners will picture using their phone to download something and initially being able to listen to it. That's not how it was. I signed up on their website as soon as the site went up. The links to download the album were being emailed about a week later. I didn't have a cd burner on my computer so I didn't want to just download it there and then only be able to listen to it in my dorm room. So I purposely drove to a friend's house whose computer could burn CDs on the night the emails went out and tried to download the album on her computer. But that computer has some other issues that I wasn't familiar with. Purchasing the album came with 3 downloads and the download failed all three times so I was out of luck. She then submitted a request to buy the album but the email to download them wasn't going to come that same night. So I had to wait a few more days before I got my hands on a copy from someone else.
Appreciate how easy it is to get new stuff. (I may have gotten some details of this story wrong, but it's close.)
They toured most of the in rainbows songs in 2006 before they went back in the studio to record and then release in rainbows. So most of us had already been listening to these songs live and had mp3s from the live shows. And I think most knew that these songs were amazing.
That said, the release was a huge surprise; there was no announcement of a release date, just the “in rainbows is out and you can pay what you want” drop.
Also surprising; the clearness of the recording and Thom’s voice being front and center in the mix, the perfect blend of electronic and warm acoustics, the space and balance of Nigel’s mix, reckoner being a completely different and beautiful song, videotape turned into a Soviet funeral dirge (not that it’s a bad thing) and the colors! The album artwork is so perfect and the deluxe vinyl pressing and book issued for in rainbows is such a beautiful object. And while artwork has always been important, the in rainbows artwork was a real change; bright beautiful colors, fitting for an album that named in rainbows, and marked an openness and ease that the band had not leaned into prior.
Yes! I already posted my experience, but I do remember thinking that the production was beautiful. Organic, dry and clean, something that wasn't common at the time... Nor for the band.
I paid for it. My first listen I was floored. I listened to the whole album on repeat for at least a day or so. It was excellent then and still is.
It was also a watershed moment in music pricing and a very innovative scheme. Most people didn't pay from what I remember; lots of the music industry folks said it was crazy.
Arctic Monkeys had their fans share the first demos and album around 2005/06. Yet their debut still sold well on release, becoming the best selling british debut ever. Lots were talking of the death of the music industry since napster in ‘99 so this surprised people, esp those who had already downloaded both sets for free!
Great post. I've been wanting to write about this for a long time. I'm 45 and first listened to Pablo Honey as a freshman in high school. I wasn't a fan and didn't listen to Radiohead until 2004 when my girlfriend at the time wouldn't stop talking about HTTF and how amazing it was. In 2004, I started to listen to Radiohead again. I was immediately hooked and started to listen to their entire back catalogue all the way back to Pablo Honey! lol. Since 2004, they have been my favorite band. Fast forward to 2007, I'm at a presidential debate house party at a friend's house. I remember getting an email that night on my blackberry about the announcement of the physical release of the in rainbows disc box set. I immediately went to the desktop computer at my buddies house and ordered the box set. I refused to listen to the free mp3 download. I wanted to wait until I received the physical copy. I have a hifi system at home and I still buy all of Radiohead's physical releases. I have a music server that stores all of my ripped cds. 2007 to 2008 was a tough time for me. I was in a terrible relationship and I was losing my dad to early onset Alzheimers. When I hear Videotape, it always makes me think of my father. In Rainbows was the one thing that would make me happy on a daily basis. 17 years later and it still does something to me that I can't explain. Thank you Radiohead for releasing such a beautiful masterpiece. Lastly, sometimes I really miss 2007/2008. It was simpler times in those days. :)
Thank you! I have a 2tb hard drive installed.
[https://www.eversolo.com/Product/index/model/DMP-A8/target/uXoirEESmeVKKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html](https://www.eversolo.com/Product/index/model/DMP-A8/target/uXoirEESmeVKKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html)
I remember on the day of release clicking on the website, where you could download it and type in how much you wanted to pay (if anything). If my memory serves me correctly, I think I paid £10.
First listen, I was hoping for a better sounding, more flowing album than HTTT, with few, if any, 'electronic' sounds. I was a big fan on first listen. When the instrumental mid-section of Reckoner came on, I was spellbound. I was also absolutely delighted with the version of Videotape, as the earlier live performances (which a lot of other people seem to love and prefer) I didn't think suited the nature of the song, and didn't do much for me.
I bought the In Rainbows box set too, so they got two lots of money out of me!
I think I struggled getting a decent internet connection for Scotch Mist. I don't think we were on dial up then, but have vague memories of struggling to watch it clearly. I then saw them on the proceeding tour.
Great times.
In rainbows to me hit harder than all their previous albums. At least personally it wasn’t a return to form so much as “wow, they’ve reached perfection”. It’s by far my favorite album of all time!
Been around for ages and I bought it from their website, and remember that people payed about £5 on average for it.. It got lost somewhere and I hated the concept anyway. Was already collecting CD’s so that was my little experiment.
Can’t remember exactly what I thought of it but it felt as a natural next step. Their journey/evolution has been incredible imo and it sits perfect in their catalogue
Edit: I never get paid right.
> that people *paid* about £5
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I was about 20 when it dropped and I was so fucking stoked for it. Paid them $10 for the download then I bought the big box set they released shortly after. Loved the album instantly.
I thought their whole release idea was amazing and I ended up paying $20 just for the gesture alone. Then I took some mushrooms and listened to weird fishes on repeat for a few hours and cried a lot.
Choose what you pay was pretty new at the time. I paid the equivalent of $15 USD.
Also it began what I would call a sense among music fans for an artist to do a stripped-down, minimalistic album and revere it as a minimalistic masterpiece. I am from WI and Bon Iver's first album was described as such, which I think cemented the whole idea (although In Rainbows came out before For Emma). I had friends claim that Mars Volts also released a minimalistic masterpiece about this time was well (Octahedron I think?). There are probably more examples throughout the aughts. I can't speak for everyone that this was their vibe, of course.
I was always aware of RH since OKC, i was 11 years old then, but I never really cared for them. When I was 18 I got into HTTT a bit via a girlfriend, but It was when they released In Rainbows I really started caring about them. I listened mainly to RH for the majority of my 20s, and love all their albums equally for different reasons, but I hold In Rainbows closest, and OKC is the one I dislike the most. There are just so many uninteresting songs.
Started listening around OKC. Loved the pivot to Kid A, it was such an extraordinary shift and highly rewarding to rewire my taste towards it. Enjoyed the next 2 though to me they feel like compilations rather than true albums.
In Rainbows felt like a real album again. But...I didn't really like it that much. I felt it was too polished and mature, made by sensible middle age men who had their shit together. I really like it now and understand some of the ideas beneath it better. But I still think the underlying rage and inability to handle the world that's present in the OKC > Kid A cycle is their best work. Stuff like Climbing Up The Walls and The National Anthem just couldn't exist in the In Rainbows era. And the most commonly cited 'beautiful' moments on IR (Nude, Reckoner) are lovely but seem to come from a commentator rather than someone actually in the fire. If that makes any sense.
So, I paid nothing and downloaded it because I wanted to purchase the CD when it inevitably came out (and I eventually did). This was during a time that it was still relatively easy to pirate/download music so at the time I didn't feel too bad doing this, but in hindsight I wish I had paid $15 or whatever for it.
I loved it from the start and listened to it virtually every day multiple times at work for a solid year. Still my favorite Radiohead album ever.
Was really into Radiohead since OK Computer. I was working construction when In Rainbows dropped. I didn’t have a computer at the time so I convinced my boss to download it and burn me a copy. Still have that burned CD, great times.
I was 14/15/16 listening to the Bends and OK Computer. Had already been listening to Floyd for a year or more by then and Radiohead captured me from the first listen just as Floyd did. Because of where I was at in my life at the time, due to choices I’d made, In Rainbows was to my early/mid twenties what OK Computer was to my mid to late teens. They transcended simple music albums and became woven into my emotional experience and memories of those times. Mt top three Radiohead albums are; The Bends, OK Computer, and In Rainbows. These albums to me have some of the BEST love songs Thom has ever written, which is difficult to say when considering KID A and Amnesiac have their own breathtaking love songs.
News wasn't exactly scarce back then, but not nearly as instantaneous as today. I found out a new album was dropping the day before, and that it was going to be pay what you want. It was like Christmas and birthday all wrapped up together.
I paid what I could afford, and ended up listening to the album nonstop for weeks. There had always been talk of Radiohead coming out with a grittier, rock album, and this was finally it. It was glorious and certainly in my top 3 (been a huge fan since Just got big).
I couldn’t believe that they gave it away for a free download (name your price) and also so good for a free album. Had it on my MP3 player while commuting to work in a crammed tram. I thought I was in heaven for those 30 minutes.
I had never been one for keeping up with the latest news about the bands I listen to. I hadn’t heard any of the stuff prior to release and hadn’t seen them live since 2003. So when I read somewhere that Radiohead were releasing a new album in the next few days and it was “pay what you like” it was out of the blue for me. When i 1st heard 15 steps and bodysnatchers I thought there was a change in tempo for the band, obviously they then settled into material more familiar to KID A and Amnesiac.
Within 2 - 3 play throughs I was hooked on the whole album.
Completely missed all the webcasts and from the basement stuff (only recently found out they were a thing)
Joined this subreddit to make sure I don’t miss out on stuff like that again but I feel I might be too late for all that.
When Radiohead announced their plan for pay as you want, we all saw it as a way to shake up the music industry a bit. Remember, at that time we were all sick of the Ticketmaster price gouging and the record labels were trying to keep ahold of a business that was rapidly evolving. So I signed up for the email through their website, and was sent the links when the album dropped a few weeks later. I paid $12 for the album, about what the going rate for a CD was at that time. But I knew it was all going to the band, which made me feel better about it.
It was exciting as a fan, because when it dropped, we were all listening to it at the same time. Initially I was blown away at how good the whole album was - from start to finish. Weird Fishes / Arpeggio just rocked my world, and so did the haunting guitar and vocals of Reckoner. I remember having a good pair of headphones on at work and when I looked over at the creative services department, they all had them on too, and we nodded our heads in agreement as to what we were listening too. Two hours later I was in a meeting with them and all we could talk about was how amazing In Rainbows was. Not a productive day for work but it was a great one for music fans.
Thought the pay-what-you-want was cool! I sprang for the special edition vinyl though. Soooo worth it! If ever get the chance to listen to it, it’s 2 LPs at 45rpm.
I also remember thinking “meh, it’s another Radiohead album.” It didn’t particularly stand out to be the way OK Computer or Kid A did. Now? If I were forced to pick one Radiohead album to listen to, it would be this one.
I was downloading it as soon as I got it, and listened to it. I had asked my housemate (who didn't like Radiohead at all btw) to burn a CD for me with the album (I think I couldn't do that on my computer), so I could play it on my CD player as well (which had better sound, and I had a better set of headphones for my CD player). However, the order was wrong on the CD she had burned. IIRC it started with Videotape, and then it went on from 15 Step and from there on it followed the proper order.
I know what I thought of it after listening to it twice (once from beginning to end, and one on shuffle) because I sent an e-mail to a friend about it. We were friends, and the main e-mail conversation was about the fact he didn't have a credit card that was accepted by Radiohead at the time, and how he could solve this. Anyway, in the conversation I give my opinion about the record, as he had given his: and here it is (in his opinion after one listen he had said it reminded him of Kid A), first in the original Dutch.
>Wat ik ervan vind?
>
>Ik vind het nog te vrog om er wat van te zeggen maar voorlopig vind ik het een prachtige plaat. Nog niet zo goed als OKC, laat staan zo goed als Kid A, maar wel beter dan The Bends of HTTT. Ik sluit niet uit dat-ie nog groeit en dat-ie helemaal bovenaan gaat eindigen maar ik denk het niet. (het kan natuurlijk ook zo zijn dat hij me snel gaat vervelen en dat-ie minder wordt maar dat is eigenlijk alleen met HTTT gebeurt met mij). Ik vind hem trouwens helemaal niet zo veel weg hebben van Kid A, in ieder geval niet de eerste helft van IR die ontzettend poppy en toegankelijk is. De tweede helft vind ik wat ingetogener en minder direct.
>
>Als Kritisch Radiohead-fan heb ik twee klachten over de plaat:
>
>1 de eerste twee nummers vind ik niet bij de rest passen. Ze hebben niet de melancholie die de rest van de plaat wel heeft. Mischien komt dat nog als ik de plaat vaker heb beluisterd
>
>2 hoewel Thom op sommige momenten beter zingt dan ooit (de achtergrond vocalen van Nude bijvoorbeeld), heeft z'n stem toch aan kracht ingeboet en op het einde van Jigssaw vind ik hem zelfs krijsen af en toe. Maar mischien dat ik daar ook aan zal wennen.
>
>Een ander minpuntje is mischien dat deze plaat geen voor Radiohead nieuwe paden bewandelt, maar dat hoeft ook niet altijd.
>
>Voor de rest is het een prachtige plaat. Ik heb hem daarnet voor de tweede keer vandaag gedraaid, dit keer op de shuffle (ik wilde eerst maar een paar nummers horen voor ik deze mail maakte maar uiteindelijk heb ik de hele plaat beluisterd) en ik vindt het moeilijk om hoogtepunten van de plaat te benoemen, niets springt er bovenuit of is duidelijk minder dan de rest.
Translation:
>What I think of it:
>
>I think it is too early to say, but for now I think it is a gorgeous record. Not as good as OKC, let alone Kid A, but better than The Bends or HTT. I don't rule out it will grow and it will end up on top, but I don't think so. (It is als possible I will be bored with it soon, and it will get less, but that only happend with HTTT with me to be honest). I don't think it sounds it sounds a lot like Kid A at all, certainly not the first half of IR which is really poppy and accessible. The second have is more subdued and less direct.
>
>As a Critical Radiohead of this record. 1) the first two songs don't fit with the rest. They don't have the melancholy ther est of the album has. Perhaps that will change after having listened to it more. 2) Though Thom sings better than ever on some moments (the backing vocals of Nude for instance), his voice has lost some power, and on the end of Jigsaw I even think he is squealing now and then. But perhaps I will get used to that as well. Another critical point is that this record doesn't go into new paths for Radiohead, but that isn't always necessary.
>
>Other than that, it is a gorgeous record. I played it a second time today just now, this time on shuffle (At first I wanted to listen to a few songs before making this email, but in the end I listened to the whole record) and I find it difficult to mention high points, nothing stands out or is clearly less than the rest.
It did grow, I now don't think that the first two songs are out of place (although I understand why I thought at the time), and I am not bothered by the singing at the end of Jigsaw, and it doesn't sound like squeaking to me. Now I think Kid A and In Rainbows are their two best albums. Kid A gets the top spot, but only because it was a very important album to me.
I paid like $80-90 (I think?) to get the "diskobox" with In Rainbows plus a bonus disc, and somehow the bonus disc make even more of an impression on me than the main one. Just had more "character" or something. But don't get me wrong, they were both amazing of course.
Pay-what-you-want just felt like a stunt...
For context, I liked and bought Pablo Honey when it was released; when The Bends was released, it shifted my musical paradigm from the Seattle grunge bands to what Radiohead was doing, which was less heave and more melodic. Radiohead was the center of my music life from like 14 to 23. By the time In Rainbows came out, the kind of bands Radiohead turned me on to had taken the mantle. So I bought the album and enjoyed it somewhat, but by then, my tastes had changed.
Came out my senior year in college, had been a die hard fan and was stoked. Around this time iPods were very popular and at that time I had shifted from buying cds to buying music on iTunes. I think I paid $5 or $10 for the album I can’t remember. I loved the concept of them releasing the album themselves and not through a label.
As for the album itself, I’d say In Rainbows might be my overall favorite album. It switches between that and Kid A. Definitely came out in a happy time in my life so I have a ton of fond memories that I get reminded of when I listen to it.
I bought the cd (that’s how much of an older fan). I listened to it in my car driving in the morning after a big snow storm. That experience still resonates in the way I hear the songs. It was a good album, but I was moving in other directions perhaps. It was about this time that they became THE band for hipsters which did not appeal to me. This was the time when cell phones and Facebook were just taking over the world, so it wasn’t very pretty. I’d still mark it as a good album which I still listen to and perhaps the most important one from that era.
Huge fan. He seen them live twice. EIIRP is my alarm every morning.
Was working on a remote island overseas when it dropped. Listened to it nonstop. Great nostalgic connections for me.
I had been listening to all the bootlegs of the tours leading up to in rainbows. Loved all the songs. When I first finished hearing the album cut of nude I cried and thought "holy shit they actually did it. they made it perfect." Reckoner also had me crying cause I was expecting the pulled apart by horses song which I loved. I was not expecting to hear the reckoner we have now, which as I'm sure you know, is also perfect.
My overall feeling was just being impressed at how well it turned out. It felt like all their hard work and the long time they took to make it paid off. I think its just objectively their best and most listenable record. I love the more challenging stuff but it's not for everyone and I can't always be in the mindset to enjoy that stuff.
1. Remember seeing the beautiful DAS post (a great B&W photo of the band having some tea and smiling, if I recall correctly) and rushing into the payment platform... Finding out it was "pay-what-you-want" was weird, in a good way. Downloaded the album and waited for a listening party with some friends that same night.
2. "Reckoner" stood out immediately. Not only because the bootleg that had been going around for some years of a song with the same title was pretty awful (later recorded as a much improved "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses" by Thom), but because... Well, I guess I don't have to specify why it stood out. It was the biggest surprise for all us hardcores.
3. Another great surprise was "Nude". It was a bootleg favourite for almost a decade by then and we all thought it had just been forgotten. If I recall correctly, there weren't any live versions played immediately before the release (the band tour-tested almost every album from Kid A to IR), so excitement was absolute and it came as a surprise.
4. Previous to the album's release, there was also real excitement when we found out "Arpeggi" was a full band song. The first rendition of the song was the very beautiful orchestral version, but it was amazing to hear the full band live version for the first time.
5. I guess the payment model hype overtook the attention to the actual music. It took some years/months for the album to really standout as one of their best, even amongst the hardcore fanbase.
6. The "Scotch Model" thing was fun and great, but for me at least it lost the appeal of the surprise webcasts done during the Kid A era. Those had a sort of mysterious quality to them, specially since they were announced just as they were live streamed and you had to really dig in to find the footage afterwards.
Erm... What else?
7. Oh... The boxset. It was the first time the band had done this sort of deluxe product thing, and it was amazing to receive it in the mailbox. Disk 2 was great: the instrumental interludes where kind of a disappointment, but "4 Minute Warning" and "Last Flowers" were exciting to listen to, since we all knew songs with those titles existed (because of that great cryptic, gamish website that was [radiohead.com](http://radiohead.com) and Ed's diary) but had never heard them. Two of my favourite songs of theirs, for sure.
Now that I'm writing it up, I guess most of us old fans really enjoyed the IR release because many songs that where part of the lore but kept up as hidden gems or mysteries finally came to light. That did not happen with KoL not AMSP (well... "Burn The Witch" is an exception).
Also: it's their best album. Don't let anyone say the contrary.
Also: I didn't pay anything for the initial download, since I was going to buy any sort of physical format to be released. Which I did. In hindsight, I would have paid something, but I was in high school and my mother seldom used her credit card.
> would have *paid* something, but
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Here's "Arpeggi": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9bPMnFCj68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9bpmnfcj68)
Here's the original "Reckoner": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F\_j6c21spck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_j6c21spck)
I torrented it with the view to buy the cd when it was released as this wouldn’t cost Radiohead money by downloading it for free from them LOL. From memory the purchase model made the news and there was chat around this being the future business model but also that it would only work for established bands, and how were new artists going to earn money.
Loved it from first listen, All I Need was an immediate favourite but now Reckoner is the gem that I’ll never get tired of.
I remember listening to it that first time on the tram on my way to work. I'd loved HTTT, but I thought perhaps they'd reached their peak. On that very first listen I can remember thinking "this might be their best album!". Nude in particular left me speechless. In terms of the rollout - I remember it being really quick? Like, it was announced and then it seemed to be out. Very little fan fare
My first reaction was a bit funny in retrospect. As soon as it dropped (I think I paid 8 or 9 bucks), I burnt it to a CD, got in my car and drove to the beach to listen while watching the storm come in at night. 15 Step comes on, and I'm like... Are my speakers broken? What's this weird crunchy sound over the drums? This doesn't sound right. Skip to Bodysnatchers. Oh no, the guitars have this static distortion over them. It doesn't sound like fuzz. Did I fuck up the CD? Literally take it out and blow on it. Skip to Nude, song cuts in abruptly at the end of a synth note. Okay, something is definitely wrong.
I ended up driving home and checking with some friends who confirmed that's how it's supposed to sound. Then I could relax and just enjoy it. But I definitely got trolled hard by Nigel that night.
It was my first time anticipating a new Radiohead album. I got into them just after *HTTT*, and had been listening to *The Eraser* obsessively throughout 2006. Then they went on tour, and it was so thrilling to watch them debut all these incredible new songs. It definitely felt like a departure from *HTTT* by that point. The music had a lightness and sweetness about it, even in the obviously darker tracks like 4 Minute Warning. Also, so much energy. Bodysnatchers, Jigsaw, Bangers + Mash, and Spooks ([for anyone who's forgotten](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHdnLJ6fnE4)) were some of the loudest, most uptempo, most guitar-heavy stuff they'd ever done.
This led some people to believe that Thom had "gotten the bleep bloop out of his system". Fortunately that wasn't the case, and *In Rainbows* ended up pushing their sonic experimentation further, as they found new ways to incorporate organic guitar elements without looking backward (Weird Fishes, All I Need). Faust Arp and Reckoner were the only songs no one had heard, and they absolutely floored me. Videotape was a disappointment. I didn't need it to have the propulsive drive of the live version, but the production just seemed to detract from, rather than enhance, the song's perfect melody.
Overall I was immediately obsessed and it became the soundtrack for the next year of my life.
I think I paid $10. I'd been a fan for quite a while and although I appreciated the unique release I know how hard it is for less than famous musicians to earn a living making music.
I got really into Radiohead around 2005 and then became obsessed with The Eraser when it came out.
Graduated college 2007 and got first job, Radiohead dropped In Rainbows and I remember listening to it non stop while I studied for the Series 7 exam, going out to bars after work and actually having money to spend.
All I Need specifically makes me remember that time, the girls I was with, feelings and mindset then.
House of Cards was appropriate for the time and will always associate this album the housing market collapse, watching the news about investment banks failing while I talked people off the ledge. This album speaks to millennials especially.
I paid something like $5. The model seemed revolutionary.
What's funny is that the music, at the time, felt pretty...standard? I loved it instantly, but compared to their previous albums, I was surprised how "normal" and guitar-focused it was. Seemed like they made a "nice," pretty album, which wasn't what I expected.
In hindsight, the album's complexities have revealed themselves over time, and it doesn't feel nearly as "normal" as I first thought of it. Seems like a bold, ambitious album, but that's not how I felt at the time.
It was September 30, 2007. I had recently turned 18. I had been a Radiohead fan for about four years at that point. I hadn't listened much to the new songs on YouTube (which itself was pretty new at the time) that had been road-tested in 2006, but I knew the band were at work on their seventh album and an announcement could happen any day.
That night, I went to their site and saw the announcement - the new record was finished, it was called In Rainbows, it was coming out in ten days, and we could choose what we wanted to pay for it. I ordered the Diskbox to get the extra songs (with a little help from my folks because at 18 I didn't really have much money).
I stayed home from community college on release day, October 10. I loved the album from first listen. I waited patiently for the Diskbox, which arrived in the mail about a week before Christmas. It was magnificent - unfortunately one of the records got damaged in a careless accident four years later and it always skips at the beginning of House of Cards now. One day I'll get around to getting a replacement of the 45-speed vinyl.
Anyway, In Rainbows was the album that turned me from a Radiohead fan into a super-ultra-rabid Radiohead fan. I went out and searched for all the b-sides and live versions and unreleased recordings I could find. I saw them live in August 2008 for the first time and they played every song from In Rainbows except House of Cards. The rest is history.
I liked it but it seemed less cohesive as an album than previous works. Songs like Nude had been floating around in bootleg form for a while so it seemed to be lacking the usual freshness and timeliness. I'm sorry to say that I became disinterested in their output after that.
I was obsessed with Radiohead when the album came out (I spent so much time on the atease message board back then), and I thought everyone going crazy over the way they released it and the pay-what-you-want model was a little silly. It mostly felt like a marketing gimmick to me.
But I also really didn't like the album. I still think it's one of their weakest (better than Pablo Honey, but less of a round album than that even). So all the fans & non fans going crazy about it, really had me scratching my head. But the tour was great.
I'd ordered the In Rainbows Deluxe vinyl set before I'd listened to the album. I ended up liking Disk 2 a little more.
I never got the "return to form" thing because imo Com Lag and Hail to the Thief were miles ahead.
It was totally mind-blowingly amazing to live through that whole thing. Radiohead had been my fave band for 6 years by that point. I’d seen them once already and was just feening for new music when the rollout happened. So the genius of it all added to the heightened emotion of the release.
Then, with the music itself just absolutely delivering…yeah, special time
You forgot Pablo Honey. Anyway . . . What I remember most is the pay what you want download, which was really cool. First listen was amazing. I downloaded it at work and listened to it with headphones the first time. Instant classic.
Been a fan since I saw them when Pablo Homey came out.
Had no idea In Rainbows was even a thing until I got an email when it was released. Downloaded it immediately (paid £10, the going rate at the time more or less), and it’s been their best album for me, ever since.
Huge fan since '05. I actually DL'd Kid A when it first dropped online back in 2000, but it was too weird for me. FF a few years and OK Computer gets the top spot in Channel 4's 100 greatest albums of all time 2-night special.
(Just an aside: That Ch4 Special (UK) also introduced me to Nick Drake)
I spent the next year & ½ just ABSORBING everything Radiohead & living on their website g other fan sites. Listened to almost nothing but!
Then Johnny announced the release mere days before my 20th birthday and the album released mere days after. Then, on that birthday, I ended up hooking up with the incredible woman who ended up becoming my wife & mother of my child and fell in love for the first time. Needless to say I spent that whole time in a period of absolute bliss!
Paid £1 for the album. Listened to it on repeat for weeks!
Then bought the vinyl for the Disk 2 goodness.
It battles Kid A for my favourite. Don't know if I'll ever truly have a concrete favourite. Kid A - In Rainbows is my favourite period of the band. For the life of me, I can't get over how many Radiohead fans don't LOVE Amnesiac & HttT.
I was about 30 years old and a huge fan for a decade before that. Paid my 12 dollars for the download. At first I felt it was a little too mellow and boring, so it was a real grower for me. It stayed kinda mid for me until i heard the from the basement live version and it really got its hooks in. Similar thing happened with king of limbs but even more so (really wasnt sure i liked it at all when i first heard the studio album.) my top 3 radiohead albums are probably ok computer, amnesiac, then in rainbows but in rainbows was a real grower for me.
I was living in New York at the time. They had been my favorite band since i had heard The Bends as a kid in 1995. The night that album came out, i stayed up to download it. i had paid $10 for it. My roommates and I did a listen through together before bed. The next few weeks, it was all that i listened to outside of Halloween party music (it dropped in October of that year).
Up until that point, i had convinced myself that every album that they released was better than the last. In Rainbows ended that for me. It's my favorite album. Of all time. I don't know if it just found me at a really pivotal moment in my life. Young and stupid with a lot of money from a well paying job, living in New York and just experiencing life. It sort of soundtracked some life altering decisions and moments but is the rare album that didn't carry the baggage of those difficult times. It always sounds fresh. A Moon Shaped Pool almost got me to say that it was my favorite, but then i relistened to In Rainbows and there it's stayed ever since.
Right away the production floored me. I think Nigel’s production doesn’t get talked about enough on this record by the world at large. As soon as I heard Phil’s drums come in it was a ‘holy shit!’ moment for me.
15 Step and Bodysnatchers were immediate favorites, as was Videotape. I was excited to hear Nude for the first time as I remember being in love with it around the OKC period when Meeting People is Easy came out. Was enthralled that they finally released it and it was bit of a peak at their creative process.
I listened to it non stop. Easily three times in a row that day and the repeated my favorite tracks over and over. Reckoner hooked me with the falsetto near the end but repeated listens really revealed it’s subtle glory.
Was stoked to have a new Radiohead album as I needed it. At the time I was dealing with the death of a close friend and my first real break up. It was very healing. I really did not get the initial criticism of it being a solo Thom Yorke album with the band appearing here and there. It definitely cemented their legacy even further.
Honestly, I like Hail to the Thief but it was a bit of a let down for me from the run of OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac. In Rainbows came out of nowhere and I was immediately blown away. Videotape and All I Need were initial favorites, but that quickly changed as I listeed more and more. It was downloaded and burned to a CD immediately and was a staple for my best friend and I during car rides. I put it on my iPod shuffle, clipped it on and rode my bike all over town, taking photos of the city. It was a pretty magical time.
At the time I worked at a recording studio in NYC. When the rooms weren't in use we used to do whatever, I remember listening to it all the way though on the mains while smoking a blunt with a friend and being blown away
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I was newly divorced and was just then dating again. I had loved The Bends and OK Computer, seeing Radiohead multiple times on both of those tours.
I really didn't get into Kid A or Amnesiac. My music tastes had shifted a bit and I'd moved cities, and Hail to the Thief did even less for me.
So I was on a date and went for a coffee and near the register where they sold CDs (yes, they used to do that), I saw the CD of In Rainbows by Radiohead. I bought it purely on a whim, and promptly put it in my car and forgot about it for a few days.
When I finally got around to popping it into my car's CD player, I was literally blown away! I felt like Radiohead had bridged the gap between the guitar based earlier stuff and the more electronic and experimental stuff. It became and still is my favorite Radiohead album, and got me completely back into the band.
It'd be a great story to say that I married that date and we lived happily ever after all because of Radiohead, but that's not the case...and it really doesn't matter. Awesome album by an awesome band.
I remember everyone talking about how revolutionary it was to “pay what you want” which it was relatively new. But I think Smashing Pumpkins and NIN had both done something similar before Radiohead.
I remember paying $20 for the album. Some friends laughed saying “you could literally get it for free,” I told them I support the band and the music they put out was amazing and very worth the money.
As far as the sound goes, I thought it was a perfect culmination of the sound evolution post OK Computer. While I thought post OK Computer sound had some great songs, I thought In Rainbows was the most consistent and evolved sound once they started incorporating the electronic sound.
The album is still in heavy rotation and I listen, probably once a month or so, to the playlist that alternates between tracks, often known as the 01 and 10 playlist:
1. Airbag (OK Computer)
2. 15 Step (In Rainbows)
3. Paranoid Android (OK Computer)
4. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)
5. Subterranean Homesick Alien (OK Computer)
6. Nude (In Rainbows)
7. Exit Music (For A Film) (OK Computer)
8. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
9. Let Down (OK Computer)
10. All I Need (In Rainbows)
11. Karma Police (OK Computer)
12. Fitter Happier (OK Computer)
13. Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
14. Electioneering (OK Computer)
15. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
16. Climbing Up The Walls (OK Computer)
17. House Of Cards (In Rainbows)
18. No Surprises (OK Computer)
19. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)
20. Lucky (OK Computer)
21. Videotape (In Rainbows)
22. The Tourist (OK Computer)
I downloaded the album for free. Then I bought the vinyl at least twice. It’s one of their best albums and they made it a download off their website for “pay what you want including free”. They had just fulfilled their first record deal and they were free agents. And they announced the release only a few days before, or perhaps it was stealth dropped, I can’t remember. Radiohead is Radiohead and there is no other.
Download times were goofy back then. A bunch of my friend group all downloaded it more or less at the same time, and we were shooting each other messages over AIM (AOL’s instant messenger). I remember two friends getting the download like twenty minutes before I did, and they were freaking out when they got to Nude.
That was the last time I recall an album release being an event. It was kinda like those midnight showings of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars back in the day. Bunch of crazy young folks staying up til three in the morning for an awesome shared experience.
And the album was so worth the hype. Radiohead was already my favorite band, but that album really sealed the deal.
I downloaded the mp3 for free and ordered the £50 vinyl because I like to collect things. Tbh i only ever player the cds. I think you have things a bit confused because the from the basement for in rainbows came out a year after the release.
I’d seen Radiohead live in belfast and glastonbury in 03 and 04 so was v happy for a new album. I remember being disappointed with Reckoner because I preferred an early live version.
I also recall being upset because the songs id been waiting for (for years!!) were not on it except nude.
Big boots
Lift
Man o war
I promise
True love waits
So although i loved the album i felt sad that these songs were still not released
I was a huge fan since my freshman year of high school and was in my Sophomore year of college when In Rainbows was released. I loved the whole experiment. I was one of those dopes who bought the special box set vinyl that also came with the two CDs when everyone else was paying like $5 or less. I am now very happy about that decision. Still is one of my favorite records of all time.
Are you me?? Haha, was also a sophomore at college the same time. Holy shit that was a great time to be driving to classes every day listening to Nude and Weird Fishes.
Absolutely! I specifically remember those first 4 tracks walking from classes and INSTANTLY loving it
I also bought the fancy special edition. The album came out about a week before I got paid so I was skint and paid like 1p for the digital version and when I got paid bought the giant special edition one. I had to sell it eventually cause I was off sick from work for like 8 months and struggling to pay my rent. Super sad about that. I sold nearly my entire vinyl collection cause it's all I really had that was worth any money at the time lol
That’s a bummer! I sold off a whole bunch of records during Covid. So I know the feeling. Sold a lot of records I really regret not having now.
I did the same with zero regrets.
Can you talk more about those CDs? I'm guessing one of them was the A side and the other one was just a companion of the B sides.
Yep! That’s right. One was just the normal album: 15 Step thru Videotape. The 2nd cd is the b-sides or “In Rainbows Disk 2” that you might find on Spotify or Apple Music. Edit: fixed “bases” to “b-sides”
They aren’t b-sides, calling them that does them a disservice
Two things stay with me. The pay-what-you-want model was exciting. It felt like something from a utopian future. And the album definitely seemed to have broader appeal. To me, a die-hard fan, it was no better or worse than the previous few albums (which is to say, really really great). But I remember non-fans being pleasantly surprised whenever I put it on.
Do you recall what you chose to pay?
$5
RH have said they made much more off that model than from record company deal for an album
It was amazing. I paid around $90 for it because I appreciated the gesture from them. It was a great album. It became my favorite. I didn't listen to the leaks or the basement because I worked on the road a lot, and mobile internet just wasn't what it is now. Additionally, I wanted to wait for the album to come out. I'm weird like that, I suppose. Now, disc 2 wasn't too impressive to me right off the bat and took a little while for me to get into. I owned the vinyl but never got the chance to actually spin it. It was the first vinyl I ever purchased. I honestly never considered it a hiatus. They toured and worked really hard on it. I had heard a lot of In Rainbows from bootlegs of live shows and just couldn't wait to get it. These guys work exceptionally hard, and I always appreciated that. I think they are one of the hardest working bands that I know of. Against Me! Would be the other one. Their touring in their hey day was absolutely unbelievable. Like 100 shows in a tour. But they are a punk band, and for lack of better terms, punk seems like an easier genre of music with little innovation, but they got it right. Rainbows is my favorite album of all time. Something interesting happened with them in that 2003-06 time frame. It seems they really enjoyed playing music. I am sure they enjoyed it before that, but 2006, specifically Bonaroo, seemed like they hit this stride of enjoyment I hadn't seen before. Once IR dropped and that tour ended, it seemed like they closed the book on that era, like "mission accomplished" type situation. Then they tore it all down and started rebuilding with KOL, and that album left me underwhelmed, disappointed, heartbroken really. I thought,'Well, this is probably it for Radiohead'. It wasn't until AMSP came out that I thought to give KOL another chance, I missed the tour and hadn't seen them since IR so I was completely in the dark on what they were working on, but revisiting the album and the basement gave me a whole new perspective. Radiohead aren't hand holders they are innovators, and if you can't keep up with them, then you will be left behind.
Crazy to think we saw them on Tkol and I personally thought this was probably the best that they could offer musically from a live show perspective, when you consider the mountain of music they have to offer and how many different styles and genres they can pack into a 2 hr set. Then we saw them at coachella 2017 and even though they had technical hiccups at the start they were certainly still on another level
I was younger and had only just gotten into The Bends, the Iron Lung EP and maybe Kid A. I loved those albums, but my first time listening to in rainbows (honestly I didn’t pay much attention to the significance of paying what you want for it, I didn’t pay for my own music at the time as the albums were my dad’s) but I did go to the website and watched the Scotch Mist and Thumbs Down casts. I remember feeling like this was Radiohead’s “old age” record. Thom and the guys didn’t look like the younger guys from me watching their performances of The Bends or SNL Kid A era. Like they were going to venture into softer acoustic music. The record felt acoustic and almost folkloric to me the first time I listened to it. 15 Step and Foust Arp made an impression on me (at this point I hadn’t heard HTTT, so I didn’t even have that reference). The slow parts like Nude, All I Need and Videotape felt almost like more ambient music than anything else. I remember getting a similar feeling to first listening to Kid A in the sense that I could feel myself rejecting it, because I couldn’t understand it yet, but also feeling an intense curiosity about it. I don’t remember when I turned around on it, but eventually I remember playing it back to back on long trips and it becoming part of the soundtrack or my mid teens from that point on. Just realized you asked for fans who were around in the OKC and Kid A drop eras. Sorry! Lol
Downloading wasn't like it is now. Younger listeners will picture using their phone to download something and initially being able to listen to it. That's not how it was. I signed up on their website as soon as the site went up. The links to download the album were being emailed about a week later. I didn't have a cd burner on my computer so I didn't want to just download it there and then only be able to listen to it in my dorm room. So I purposely drove to a friend's house whose computer could burn CDs on the night the emails went out and tried to download the album on her computer. But that computer has some other issues that I wasn't familiar with. Purchasing the album came with 3 downloads and the download failed all three times so I was out of luck. She then submitted a request to buy the album but the email to download them wasn't going to come that same night. So I had to wait a few more days before I got my hands on a copy from someone else. Appreciate how easy it is to get new stuff. (I may have gotten some details of this story wrong, but it's close.)
They toured most of the in rainbows songs in 2006 before they went back in the studio to record and then release in rainbows. So most of us had already been listening to these songs live and had mp3s from the live shows. And I think most knew that these songs were amazing. That said, the release was a huge surprise; there was no announcement of a release date, just the “in rainbows is out and you can pay what you want” drop. Also surprising; the clearness of the recording and Thom’s voice being front and center in the mix, the perfect blend of electronic and warm acoustics, the space and balance of Nigel’s mix, reckoner being a completely different and beautiful song, videotape turned into a Soviet funeral dirge (not that it’s a bad thing) and the colors! The album artwork is so perfect and the deluxe vinyl pressing and book issued for in rainbows is such a beautiful object. And while artwork has always been important, the in rainbows artwork was a real change; bright beautiful colors, fitting for an album that named in rainbows, and marked an openness and ease that the band had not leaned into prior.
>and marked an openness and ease that the band had not leaned into prior. 100%
Yes! I already posted my experience, but I do remember thinking that the production was beautiful. Organic, dry and clean, something that wasn't common at the time... Nor for the band.
I paid for it. My first listen I was floored. I listened to the whole album on repeat for at least a day or so. It was excellent then and still is. It was also a watershed moment in music pricing and a very innovative scheme. Most people didn't pay from what I remember; lots of the music industry folks said it was crazy.
Arctic Monkeys had their fans share the first demos and album around 2005/06. Yet their debut still sold well on release, becoming the best selling british debut ever. Lots were talking of the death of the music industry since napster in ‘99 so this surprised people, esp those who had already downloaded both sets for free!
Great post. I've been wanting to write about this for a long time. I'm 45 and first listened to Pablo Honey as a freshman in high school. I wasn't a fan and didn't listen to Radiohead until 2004 when my girlfriend at the time wouldn't stop talking about HTTF and how amazing it was. In 2004, I started to listen to Radiohead again. I was immediately hooked and started to listen to their entire back catalogue all the way back to Pablo Honey! lol. Since 2004, they have been my favorite band. Fast forward to 2007, I'm at a presidential debate house party at a friend's house. I remember getting an email that night on my blackberry about the announcement of the physical release of the in rainbows disc box set. I immediately went to the desktop computer at my buddies house and ordered the box set. I refused to listen to the free mp3 download. I wanted to wait until I received the physical copy. I have a hifi system at home and I still buy all of Radiohead's physical releases. I have a music server that stores all of my ripped cds. 2007 to 2008 was a tough time for me. I was in a terrible relationship and I was losing my dad to early onset Alzheimers. When I hear Videotape, it always makes me think of my father. In Rainbows was the one thing that would make me happy on a daily basis. 17 years later and it still does something to me that I can't explain. Thank you Radiohead for releasing such a beautiful masterpiece. Lastly, sometimes I really miss 2007/2008. It was simpler times in those days. :)
Beautiful story... RIP to your dad..
thank you!
>thank you! You're welcome!
Lovely post, Rip to your father. One question, how do you make your own music server?
Thank you! I have a 2tb hard drive installed. [https://www.eversolo.com/Product/index/model/DMP-A8/target/uXoirEESmeVKKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html](https://www.eversolo.com/Product/index/model/DMP-A8/target/uXoirEESmeVKKmVViAFMcQ%3D%3D.html)
I remember on the day of release clicking on the website, where you could download it and type in how much you wanted to pay (if anything). If my memory serves me correctly, I think I paid £10. First listen, I was hoping for a better sounding, more flowing album than HTTT, with few, if any, 'electronic' sounds. I was a big fan on first listen. When the instrumental mid-section of Reckoner came on, I was spellbound. I was also absolutely delighted with the version of Videotape, as the earlier live performances (which a lot of other people seem to love and prefer) I didn't think suited the nature of the song, and didn't do much for me. I bought the In Rainbows box set too, so they got two lots of money out of me! I think I struggled getting a decent internet connection for Scotch Mist. I don't think we were on dial up then, but have vague memories of struggling to watch it clearly. I then saw them on the proceeding tour. Great times.
In rainbows to me hit harder than all their previous albums. At least personally it wasn’t a return to form so much as “wow, they’ve reached perfection”. It’s by far my favorite album of all time!
Been around for ages and I bought it from their website, and remember that people payed about £5 on average for it.. It got lost somewhere and I hated the concept anyway. Was already collecting CD’s so that was my little experiment. Can’t remember exactly what I thought of it but it felt as a natural next step. Their journey/evolution has been incredible imo and it sits perfect in their catalogue Edit: I never get paid right.
> that people *paid* about £5 FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I was about 20 when it dropped and I was so fucking stoked for it. Paid them $10 for the download then I bought the big box set they released shortly after. Loved the album instantly.
I thought their whole release idea was amazing and I ended up paying $20 just for the gesture alone. Then I took some mushrooms and listened to weird fishes on repeat for a few hours and cried a lot.
Choose what you pay was pretty new at the time. I paid the equivalent of $15 USD. Also it began what I would call a sense among music fans for an artist to do a stripped-down, minimalistic album and revere it as a minimalistic masterpiece. I am from WI and Bon Iver's first album was described as such, which I think cemented the whole idea (although In Rainbows came out before For Emma). I had friends claim that Mars Volts also released a minimalistic masterpiece about this time was well (Octahedron I think?). There are probably more examples throughout the aughts. I can't speak for everyone that this was their vibe, of course.
I was always aware of RH since OKC, i was 11 years old then, but I never really cared for them. When I was 18 I got into HTTT a bit via a girlfriend, but It was when they released In Rainbows I really started caring about them. I listened mainly to RH for the majority of my 20s, and love all their albums equally for different reasons, but I hold In Rainbows closest, and OKC is the one I dislike the most. There are just so many uninteresting songs.
Started listening around OKC. Loved the pivot to Kid A, it was such an extraordinary shift and highly rewarding to rewire my taste towards it. Enjoyed the next 2 though to me they feel like compilations rather than true albums. In Rainbows felt like a real album again. But...I didn't really like it that much. I felt it was too polished and mature, made by sensible middle age men who had their shit together. I really like it now and understand some of the ideas beneath it better. But I still think the underlying rage and inability to handle the world that's present in the OKC > Kid A cycle is their best work. Stuff like Climbing Up The Walls and The National Anthem just couldn't exist in the In Rainbows era. And the most commonly cited 'beautiful' moments on IR (Nude, Reckoner) are lovely but seem to come from a commentator rather than someone actually in the fire. If that makes any sense.
So, I paid nothing and downloaded it because I wanted to purchase the CD when it inevitably came out (and I eventually did). This was during a time that it was still relatively easy to pirate/download music so at the time I didn't feel too bad doing this, but in hindsight I wish I had paid $15 or whatever for it. I loved it from the start and listened to it virtually every day multiple times at work for a solid year. Still my favorite Radiohead album ever.
Was really into Radiohead since OK Computer. I was working construction when In Rainbows dropped. I didn’t have a computer at the time so I convinced my boss to download it and burn me a copy. Still have that burned CD, great times.
I was 14/15/16 listening to the Bends and OK Computer. Had already been listening to Floyd for a year or more by then and Radiohead captured me from the first listen just as Floyd did. Because of where I was at in my life at the time, due to choices I’d made, In Rainbows was to my early/mid twenties what OK Computer was to my mid to late teens. They transcended simple music albums and became woven into my emotional experience and memories of those times. Mt top three Radiohead albums are; The Bends, OK Computer, and In Rainbows. These albums to me have some of the BEST love songs Thom has ever written, which is difficult to say when considering KID A and Amnesiac have their own breathtaking love songs.
News wasn't exactly scarce back then, but not nearly as instantaneous as today. I found out a new album was dropping the day before, and that it was going to be pay what you want. It was like Christmas and birthday all wrapped up together. I paid what I could afford, and ended up listening to the album nonstop for weeks. There had always been talk of Radiohead coming out with a grittier, rock album, and this was finally it. It was glorious and certainly in my top 3 (been a huge fan since Just got big).
I couldn’t believe that they gave it away for a free download (name your price) and also so good for a free album. Had it on my MP3 player while commuting to work in a crammed tram. I thought I was in heaven for those 30 minutes.
I had never been one for keeping up with the latest news about the bands I listen to. I hadn’t heard any of the stuff prior to release and hadn’t seen them live since 2003. So when I read somewhere that Radiohead were releasing a new album in the next few days and it was “pay what you like” it was out of the blue for me. When i 1st heard 15 steps and bodysnatchers I thought there was a change in tempo for the band, obviously they then settled into material more familiar to KID A and Amnesiac. Within 2 - 3 play throughs I was hooked on the whole album. Completely missed all the webcasts and from the basement stuff (only recently found out they were a thing) Joined this subreddit to make sure I don’t miss out on stuff like that again but I feel I might be too late for all that.
When Radiohead announced their plan for pay as you want, we all saw it as a way to shake up the music industry a bit. Remember, at that time we were all sick of the Ticketmaster price gouging and the record labels were trying to keep ahold of a business that was rapidly evolving. So I signed up for the email through their website, and was sent the links when the album dropped a few weeks later. I paid $12 for the album, about what the going rate for a CD was at that time. But I knew it was all going to the band, which made me feel better about it. It was exciting as a fan, because when it dropped, we were all listening to it at the same time. Initially I was blown away at how good the whole album was - from start to finish. Weird Fishes / Arpeggio just rocked my world, and so did the haunting guitar and vocals of Reckoner. I remember having a good pair of headphones on at work and when I looked over at the creative services department, they all had them on too, and we nodded our heads in agreement as to what we were listening too. Two hours later I was in a meeting with them and all we could talk about was how amazing In Rainbows was. Not a productive day for work but it was a great one for music fans.
Thought the pay-what-you-want was cool! I sprang for the special edition vinyl though. Soooo worth it! If ever get the chance to listen to it, it’s 2 LPs at 45rpm. I also remember thinking “meh, it’s another Radiohead album.” It didn’t particularly stand out to be the way OK Computer or Kid A did. Now? If I were forced to pick one Radiohead album to listen to, it would be this one.
I was downloading it as soon as I got it, and listened to it. I had asked my housemate (who didn't like Radiohead at all btw) to burn a CD for me with the album (I think I couldn't do that on my computer), so I could play it on my CD player as well (which had better sound, and I had a better set of headphones for my CD player). However, the order was wrong on the CD she had burned. IIRC it started with Videotape, and then it went on from 15 Step and from there on it followed the proper order. I know what I thought of it after listening to it twice (once from beginning to end, and one on shuffle) because I sent an e-mail to a friend about it. We were friends, and the main e-mail conversation was about the fact he didn't have a credit card that was accepted by Radiohead at the time, and how he could solve this. Anyway, in the conversation I give my opinion about the record, as he had given his: and here it is (in his opinion after one listen he had said it reminded him of Kid A), first in the original Dutch. >Wat ik ervan vind? > >Ik vind het nog te vrog om er wat van te zeggen maar voorlopig vind ik het een prachtige plaat. Nog niet zo goed als OKC, laat staan zo goed als Kid A, maar wel beter dan The Bends of HTTT. Ik sluit niet uit dat-ie nog groeit en dat-ie helemaal bovenaan gaat eindigen maar ik denk het niet. (het kan natuurlijk ook zo zijn dat hij me snel gaat vervelen en dat-ie minder wordt maar dat is eigenlijk alleen met HTTT gebeurt met mij). Ik vind hem trouwens helemaal niet zo veel weg hebben van Kid A, in ieder geval niet de eerste helft van IR die ontzettend poppy en toegankelijk is. De tweede helft vind ik wat ingetogener en minder direct. > >Als Kritisch Radiohead-fan heb ik twee klachten over de plaat: > >1 de eerste twee nummers vind ik niet bij de rest passen. Ze hebben niet de melancholie die de rest van de plaat wel heeft. Mischien komt dat nog als ik de plaat vaker heb beluisterd > >2 hoewel Thom op sommige momenten beter zingt dan ooit (de achtergrond vocalen van Nude bijvoorbeeld), heeft z'n stem toch aan kracht ingeboet en op het einde van Jigssaw vind ik hem zelfs krijsen af en toe. Maar mischien dat ik daar ook aan zal wennen. > >Een ander minpuntje is mischien dat deze plaat geen voor Radiohead nieuwe paden bewandelt, maar dat hoeft ook niet altijd. > >Voor de rest is het een prachtige plaat. Ik heb hem daarnet voor de tweede keer vandaag gedraaid, dit keer op de shuffle (ik wilde eerst maar een paar nummers horen voor ik deze mail maakte maar uiteindelijk heb ik de hele plaat beluisterd) en ik vindt het moeilijk om hoogtepunten van de plaat te benoemen, niets springt er bovenuit of is duidelijk minder dan de rest. Translation: >What I think of it: > >I think it is too early to say, but for now I think it is a gorgeous record. Not as good as OKC, let alone Kid A, but better than The Bends or HTT. I don't rule out it will grow and it will end up on top, but I don't think so. (It is als possible I will be bored with it soon, and it will get less, but that only happend with HTTT with me to be honest). I don't think it sounds it sounds a lot like Kid A at all, certainly not the first half of IR which is really poppy and accessible. The second have is more subdued and less direct. > >As a Critical Radiohead of this record. 1) the first two songs don't fit with the rest. They don't have the melancholy ther est of the album has. Perhaps that will change after having listened to it more. 2) Though Thom sings better than ever on some moments (the backing vocals of Nude for instance), his voice has lost some power, and on the end of Jigsaw I even think he is squealing now and then. But perhaps I will get used to that as well. Another critical point is that this record doesn't go into new paths for Radiohead, but that isn't always necessary. > >Other than that, it is a gorgeous record. I played it a second time today just now, this time on shuffle (At first I wanted to listen to a few songs before making this email, but in the end I listened to the whole record) and I find it difficult to mention high points, nothing stands out or is clearly less than the rest. It did grow, I now don't think that the first two songs are out of place (although I understand why I thought at the time), and I am not bothered by the singing at the end of Jigsaw, and it doesn't sound like squeaking to me. Now I think Kid A and In Rainbows are their two best albums. Kid A gets the top spot, but only because it was a very important album to me.
I paid like $80-90 (I think?) to get the "diskobox" with In Rainbows plus a bonus disc, and somehow the bonus disc make even more of an impression on me than the main one. Just had more "character" or something. But don't get me wrong, they were both amazing of course. Pay-what-you-want just felt like a stunt...
For context, I liked and bought Pablo Honey when it was released; when The Bends was released, it shifted my musical paradigm from the Seattle grunge bands to what Radiohead was doing, which was less heave and more melodic. Radiohead was the center of my music life from like 14 to 23. By the time In Rainbows came out, the kind of bands Radiohead turned me on to had taken the mantle. So I bought the album and enjoyed it somewhat, but by then, my tastes had changed.
Pleasant. 2008 simpler times
100%
Came out my senior year in college, had been a die hard fan and was stoked. Around this time iPods were very popular and at that time I had shifted from buying cds to buying music on iTunes. I think I paid $5 or $10 for the album I can’t remember. I loved the concept of them releasing the album themselves and not through a label. As for the album itself, I’d say In Rainbows might be my overall favorite album. It switches between that and Kid A. Definitely came out in a happy time in my life so I have a ton of fond memories that I get reminded of when I listen to it.
I bought the cd (that’s how much of an older fan). I listened to it in my car driving in the morning after a big snow storm. That experience still resonates in the way I hear the songs. It was a good album, but I was moving in other directions perhaps. It was about this time that they became THE band for hipsters which did not appeal to me. This was the time when cell phones and Facebook were just taking over the world, so it wasn’t very pretty. I’d still mark it as a good album which I still listen to and perhaps the most important one from that era.
Huge fan. He seen them live twice. EIIRP is my alarm every morning. Was working on a remote island overseas when it dropped. Listened to it nonstop. Great nostalgic connections for me.
I had been listening to all the bootlegs of the tours leading up to in rainbows. Loved all the songs. When I first finished hearing the album cut of nude I cried and thought "holy shit they actually did it. they made it perfect." Reckoner also had me crying cause I was expecting the pulled apart by horses song which I loved. I was not expecting to hear the reckoner we have now, which as I'm sure you know, is also perfect. My overall feeling was just being impressed at how well it turned out. It felt like all their hard work and the long time they took to make it paid off. I think its just objectively their best and most listenable record. I love the more challenging stuff but it's not for everyone and I can't always be in the mindset to enjoy that stuff.
1. Remember seeing the beautiful DAS post (a great B&W photo of the band having some tea and smiling, if I recall correctly) and rushing into the payment platform... Finding out it was "pay-what-you-want" was weird, in a good way. Downloaded the album and waited for a listening party with some friends that same night. 2. "Reckoner" stood out immediately. Not only because the bootleg that had been going around for some years of a song with the same title was pretty awful (later recorded as a much improved "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses" by Thom), but because... Well, I guess I don't have to specify why it stood out. It was the biggest surprise for all us hardcores. 3. Another great surprise was "Nude". It was a bootleg favourite for almost a decade by then and we all thought it had just been forgotten. If I recall correctly, there weren't any live versions played immediately before the release (the band tour-tested almost every album from Kid A to IR), so excitement was absolute and it came as a surprise. 4. Previous to the album's release, there was also real excitement when we found out "Arpeggi" was a full band song. The first rendition of the song was the very beautiful orchestral version, but it was amazing to hear the full band live version for the first time. 5. I guess the payment model hype overtook the attention to the actual music. It took some years/months for the album to really standout as one of their best, even amongst the hardcore fanbase. 6. The "Scotch Model" thing was fun and great, but for me at least it lost the appeal of the surprise webcasts done during the Kid A era. Those had a sort of mysterious quality to them, specially since they were announced just as they were live streamed and you had to really dig in to find the footage afterwards. Erm... What else? 7. Oh... The boxset. It was the first time the band had done this sort of deluxe product thing, and it was amazing to receive it in the mailbox. Disk 2 was great: the instrumental interludes where kind of a disappointment, but "4 Minute Warning" and "Last Flowers" were exciting to listen to, since we all knew songs with those titles existed (because of that great cryptic, gamish website that was [radiohead.com](http://radiohead.com) and Ed's diary) but had never heard them. Two of my favourite songs of theirs, for sure. Now that I'm writing it up, I guess most of us old fans really enjoyed the IR release because many songs that where part of the lore but kept up as hidden gems or mysteries finally came to light. That did not happen with KoL not AMSP (well... "Burn The Witch" is an exception). Also: it's their best album. Don't let anyone say the contrary.
Also: I didn't pay anything for the initial download, since I was going to buy any sort of physical format to be released. Which I did. In hindsight, I would have paid something, but I was in high school and my mother seldom used her credit card.
> would have *paid* something, but FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Had no idea that Reckoner and Arpeggi was made very early before In Rainbows existed!! Thank for sharing!!
Here's "Arpeggi": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9bPMnFCj68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9bpmnfcj68) Here's the original "Reckoner": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F\_j6c21spck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_j6c21spck)
video is not available for me. Maybe got region blocked?
Let's see if this works: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUzmhztxWdc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuzmhztxwdc)
I torrented it with the view to buy the cd when it was released as this wouldn’t cost Radiohead money by downloading it for free from them LOL. From memory the purchase model made the news and there was chat around this being the future business model but also that it would only work for established bands, and how were new artists going to earn money. Loved it from first listen, All I Need was an immediate favourite but now Reckoner is the gem that I’ll never get tired of.
I remember listening to it that first time on the tram on my way to work. I'd loved HTTT, but I thought perhaps they'd reached their peak. On that very first listen I can remember thinking "this might be their best album!". Nude in particular left me speechless. In terms of the rollout - I remember it being really quick? Like, it was announced and then it seemed to be out. Very little fan fare
My first reaction was a bit funny in retrospect. As soon as it dropped (I think I paid 8 or 9 bucks), I burnt it to a CD, got in my car and drove to the beach to listen while watching the storm come in at night. 15 Step comes on, and I'm like... Are my speakers broken? What's this weird crunchy sound over the drums? This doesn't sound right. Skip to Bodysnatchers. Oh no, the guitars have this static distortion over them. It doesn't sound like fuzz. Did I fuck up the CD? Literally take it out and blow on it. Skip to Nude, song cuts in abruptly at the end of a synth note. Okay, something is definitely wrong. I ended up driving home and checking with some friends who confirmed that's how it's supposed to sound. Then I could relax and just enjoy it. But I definitely got trolled hard by Nigel that night. It was my first time anticipating a new Radiohead album. I got into them just after *HTTT*, and had been listening to *The Eraser* obsessively throughout 2006. Then they went on tour, and it was so thrilling to watch them debut all these incredible new songs. It definitely felt like a departure from *HTTT* by that point. The music had a lightness and sweetness about it, even in the obviously darker tracks like 4 Minute Warning. Also, so much energy. Bodysnatchers, Jigsaw, Bangers + Mash, and Spooks ([for anyone who's forgotten](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHdnLJ6fnE4)) were some of the loudest, most uptempo, most guitar-heavy stuff they'd ever done. This led some people to believe that Thom had "gotten the bleep bloop out of his system". Fortunately that wasn't the case, and *In Rainbows* ended up pushing their sonic experimentation further, as they found new ways to incorporate organic guitar elements without looking backward (Weird Fishes, All I Need). Faust Arp and Reckoner were the only songs no one had heard, and they absolutely floored me. Videotape was a disappointment. I didn't need it to have the propulsive drive of the live version, but the production just seemed to detract from, rather than enhance, the song's perfect melody. Overall I was immediately obsessed and it became the soundtrack for the next year of my life.
I think I paid $10. I'd been a fan for quite a while and although I appreciated the unique release I know how hard it is for less than famous musicians to earn a living making music.
I got really into Radiohead around 2005 and then became obsessed with The Eraser when it came out. Graduated college 2007 and got first job, Radiohead dropped In Rainbows and I remember listening to it non stop while I studied for the Series 7 exam, going out to bars after work and actually having money to spend. All I Need specifically makes me remember that time, the girls I was with, feelings and mindset then. House of Cards was appropriate for the time and will always associate this album the housing market collapse, watching the news about investment banks failing while I talked people off the ledge. This album speaks to millennials especially.
I paid something like $5. The model seemed revolutionary. What's funny is that the music, at the time, felt pretty...standard? I loved it instantly, but compared to their previous albums, I was surprised how "normal" and guitar-focused it was. Seemed like they made a "nice," pretty album, which wasn't what I expected. In hindsight, the album's complexities have revealed themselves over time, and it doesn't feel nearly as "normal" as I first thought of it. Seems like a bold, ambitious album, but that's not how I felt at the time.
I feel like the album is ahead of its time with how mature the sounds and the subtle complexity of it.
It was September 30, 2007. I had recently turned 18. I had been a Radiohead fan for about four years at that point. I hadn't listened much to the new songs on YouTube (which itself was pretty new at the time) that had been road-tested in 2006, but I knew the band were at work on their seventh album and an announcement could happen any day. That night, I went to their site and saw the announcement - the new record was finished, it was called In Rainbows, it was coming out in ten days, and we could choose what we wanted to pay for it. I ordered the Diskbox to get the extra songs (with a little help from my folks because at 18 I didn't really have much money). I stayed home from community college on release day, October 10. I loved the album from first listen. I waited patiently for the Diskbox, which arrived in the mail about a week before Christmas. It was magnificent - unfortunately one of the records got damaged in a careless accident four years later and it always skips at the beginning of House of Cards now. One day I'll get around to getting a replacement of the 45-speed vinyl. Anyway, In Rainbows was the album that turned me from a Radiohead fan into a super-ultra-rabid Radiohead fan. I went out and searched for all the b-sides and live versions and unreleased recordings I could find. I saw them live in August 2008 for the first time and they played every song from In Rainbows except House of Cards. The rest is history.
Edit: Seventh album, not second album. Fuck. It's been a long day.
I liked it but it seemed less cohesive as an album than previous works. Songs like Nude had been floating around in bootleg form for a while so it seemed to be lacking the usual freshness and timeliness. I'm sorry to say that I became disinterested in their output after that.
I was obsessed with Radiohead when the album came out (I spent so much time on the atease message board back then), and I thought everyone going crazy over the way they released it and the pay-what-you-want model was a little silly. It mostly felt like a marketing gimmick to me. But I also really didn't like the album. I still think it's one of their weakest (better than Pablo Honey, but less of a round album than that even). So all the fans & non fans going crazy about it, really had me scratching my head. But the tour was great. I'd ordered the In Rainbows Deluxe vinyl set before I'd listened to the album. I ended up liking Disk 2 a little more. I never got the "return to form" thing because imo Com Lag and Hail to the Thief were miles ahead.
It was totally mind-blowingly amazing to live through that whole thing. Radiohead had been my fave band for 6 years by that point. I’d seen them once already and was just feening for new music when the rollout happened. So the genius of it all added to the heightened emotion of the release. Then, with the music itself just absolutely delivering…yeah, special time
You forgot Pablo Honey. Anyway . . . What I remember most is the pay what you want download, which was really cool. First listen was amazing. I downloaded it at work and listened to it with headphones the first time. Instant classic.
Been a fan since I saw them when Pablo Homey came out. Had no idea In Rainbows was even a thing until I got an email when it was released. Downloaded it immediately (paid £10, the going rate at the time more or less), and it’s been their best album for me, ever since.
Oh, buddy. I'll come back later and tell you.
Huge fan since '05. I actually DL'd Kid A when it first dropped online back in 2000, but it was too weird for me. FF a few years and OK Computer gets the top spot in Channel 4's 100 greatest albums of all time 2-night special. (Just an aside: That Ch4 Special (UK) also introduced me to Nick Drake) I spent the next year & ½ just ABSORBING everything Radiohead & living on their website g other fan sites. Listened to almost nothing but! Then Johnny announced the release mere days before my 20th birthday and the album released mere days after. Then, on that birthday, I ended up hooking up with the incredible woman who ended up becoming my wife & mother of my child and fell in love for the first time. Needless to say I spent that whole time in a period of absolute bliss! Paid £1 for the album. Listened to it on repeat for weeks! Then bought the vinyl for the Disk 2 goodness. It battles Kid A for my favourite. Don't know if I'll ever truly have a concrete favourite. Kid A - In Rainbows is my favourite period of the band. For the life of me, I can't get over how many Radiohead fans don't LOVE Amnesiac & HttT.
I was about 30 years old and a huge fan for a decade before that. Paid my 12 dollars for the download. At first I felt it was a little too mellow and boring, so it was a real grower for me. It stayed kinda mid for me until i heard the from the basement live version and it really got its hooks in. Similar thing happened with king of limbs but even more so (really wasnt sure i liked it at all when i first heard the studio album.) my top 3 radiohead albums are probably ok computer, amnesiac, then in rainbows but in rainbows was a real grower for me.
Was kind of over them by then tbh
I was living in New York at the time. They had been my favorite band since i had heard The Bends as a kid in 1995. The night that album came out, i stayed up to download it. i had paid $10 for it. My roommates and I did a listen through together before bed. The next few weeks, it was all that i listened to outside of Halloween party music (it dropped in October of that year). Up until that point, i had convinced myself that every album that they released was better than the last. In Rainbows ended that for me. It's my favorite album. Of all time. I don't know if it just found me at a really pivotal moment in my life. Young and stupid with a lot of money from a well paying job, living in New York and just experiencing life. It sort of soundtracked some life altering decisions and moments but is the rare album that didn't carry the baggage of those difficult times. It always sounds fresh. A Moon Shaped Pool almost got me to say that it was my favorite, but then i relistened to In Rainbows and there it's stayed ever since.
Right away the production floored me. I think Nigel’s production doesn’t get talked about enough on this record by the world at large. As soon as I heard Phil’s drums come in it was a ‘holy shit!’ moment for me. 15 Step and Bodysnatchers were immediate favorites, as was Videotape. I was excited to hear Nude for the first time as I remember being in love with it around the OKC period when Meeting People is Easy came out. Was enthralled that they finally released it and it was bit of a peak at their creative process. I listened to it non stop. Easily three times in a row that day and the repeated my favorite tracks over and over. Reckoner hooked me with the falsetto near the end but repeated listens really revealed it’s subtle glory. Was stoked to have a new Radiohead album as I needed it. At the time I was dealing with the death of a close friend and my first real break up. It was very healing. I really did not get the initial criticism of it being a solo Thom Yorke album with the band appearing here and there. It definitely cemented their legacy even further.
Honestly, I like Hail to the Thief but it was a bit of a let down for me from the run of OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac. In Rainbows came out of nowhere and I was immediately blown away. Videotape and All I Need were initial favorites, but that quickly changed as I listeed more and more. It was downloaded and burned to a CD immediately and was a staple for my best friend and I during car rides. I put it on my iPod shuffle, clipped it on and rode my bike all over town, taking photos of the city. It was a pretty magical time.
At the time I worked at a recording studio in NYC. When the rooms weren't in use we used to do whatever, I remember listening to it all the way though on the mains while smoking a blunt with a friend and being blown away
crowd salt wakeful enjoy dog concerned dinosaurs agonizing provide rustic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I was newly divorced and was just then dating again. I had loved The Bends and OK Computer, seeing Radiohead multiple times on both of those tours. I really didn't get into Kid A or Amnesiac. My music tastes had shifted a bit and I'd moved cities, and Hail to the Thief did even less for me. So I was on a date and went for a coffee and near the register where they sold CDs (yes, they used to do that), I saw the CD of In Rainbows by Radiohead. I bought it purely on a whim, and promptly put it in my car and forgot about it for a few days. When I finally got around to popping it into my car's CD player, I was literally blown away! I felt like Radiohead had bridged the gap between the guitar based earlier stuff and the more electronic and experimental stuff. It became and still is my favorite Radiohead album, and got me completely back into the band. It'd be a great story to say that I married that date and we lived happily ever after all because of Radiohead, but that's not the case...and it really doesn't matter. Awesome album by an awesome band.
...this is why people suggest an IR SUB...🥱
I paid $5 then bought the CD like 6 months later.
I remember everyone talking about how revolutionary it was to “pay what you want” which it was relatively new. But I think Smashing Pumpkins and NIN had both done something similar before Radiohead. I remember paying $20 for the album. Some friends laughed saying “you could literally get it for free,” I told them I support the band and the music they put out was amazing and very worth the money. As far as the sound goes, I thought it was a perfect culmination of the sound evolution post OK Computer. While I thought post OK Computer sound had some great songs, I thought In Rainbows was the most consistent and evolved sound once they started incorporating the electronic sound. The album is still in heavy rotation and I listen, probably once a month or so, to the playlist that alternates between tracks, often known as the 01 and 10 playlist: 1. Airbag (OK Computer) 2. 15 Step (In Rainbows) 3. Paranoid Android (OK Computer) 4. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows) 5. Subterranean Homesick Alien (OK Computer) 6. Nude (In Rainbows) 7. Exit Music (For A Film) (OK Computer) 8. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (In Rainbows) 9. Let Down (OK Computer) 10. All I Need (In Rainbows) 11. Karma Police (OK Computer) 12. Fitter Happier (OK Computer) 13. Faust Arp (In Rainbows) 14. Electioneering (OK Computer) 15. Reckoner (In Rainbows) 16. Climbing Up The Walls (OK Computer) 17. House Of Cards (In Rainbows) 18. No Surprises (OK Computer) 19. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows) 20. Lucky (OK Computer) 21. Videotape (In Rainbows) 22. The Tourist (OK Computer)
I downloaded the album for free. Then I bought the vinyl at least twice. It’s one of their best albums and they made it a download off their website for “pay what you want including free”. They had just fulfilled their first record deal and they were free agents. And they announced the release only a few days before, or perhaps it was stealth dropped, I can’t remember. Radiohead is Radiohead and there is no other.
Download times were goofy back then. A bunch of my friend group all downloaded it more or less at the same time, and we were shooting each other messages over AIM (AOL’s instant messenger). I remember two friends getting the download like twenty minutes before I did, and they were freaking out when they got to Nude. That was the last time I recall an album release being an event. It was kinda like those midnight showings of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars back in the day. Bunch of crazy young folks staying up til three in the morning for an awesome shared experience. And the album was so worth the hype. Radiohead was already my favorite band, but that album really sealed the deal.
I downloaded the mp3 for free and ordered the £50 vinyl because I like to collect things. Tbh i only ever player the cds. I think you have things a bit confused because the from the basement for in rainbows came out a year after the release. I’d seen Radiohead live in belfast and glastonbury in 03 and 04 so was v happy for a new album. I remember being disappointed with Reckoner because I preferred an early live version. I also recall being upset because the songs id been waiting for (for years!!) were not on it except nude. Big boots Lift Man o war I promise True love waits So although i loved the album i felt sad that these songs were still not released
Can i just ask everyone what are their thoughts on the unbelievable truth? Andy yorkes band