In Rainbows by Radiohead | Album of the Week

Twitch. BandCamp. OnlyFans. The un-deleteable U2 album on your phone. Bedroom pop. Lofi beats to relax/study to. The Tupac hologram. MLM schemes. What connects each of these cultural concepts? All are innovations in content and payment exchange, and all derive from Radiohead’s 2007 release of their seventh studio album, In Rainbows.

Coming off of 2003’s Hail To the Thief, the band’s first release after a four year break would be without the support of a major record label. Paying for the recording out of pocket and without any connection to traditional distribution methods, the band needed to come up with their own way to release In Rainbows. At the time, without record label representation, the music industry was near impossible to break into. Even for an established act as legendary and popular as Radiohead, infrastructure didn’t exist for artists to publish their work without the help – or more aptly, permission – of a record label.

Radiohead’s solution? Release the album as a free download on their website alongside a voluntary payment digital tip jar. In Rainbows officially released via this first-of-its-kind strategy on October 10, 2007, drawing instant praise and criticism and propelling the entire media landscape into a new conversation surrounding media delivery that persists to this day. Some applauded the experiment for creating a direct to listener sales avenue for artists, democratizing the industry and taking power away from the record label oligopoly. Others called the release a business disaster, with the band admitting that the album was torrented more times than downloaded from Radiohead’s website altogether, and most of their downloads had been for free. Regardless, it’s reported that In Rainbows earned more money than Hail To the Thief solely through the pay-what-you-wish strategy and when the album finally received a physical release, it debuted at number one.

Besides the innovative distribution strategy, the music speaks for itself. In Rainbows consistently ranks amongst the band’s best creative output, and easily tops their releases since the back-to-back punch of OK Computer and Kid A in 1997 and 2000. Cinephiles will instantly recognize the album’s first song “15 Step” as the final entry on Twilight’s soundtrack, with viscous drums kicking in as Victoria struts down the stairs of Forks High School’s prom. The album is simultaneously Radiohead at its most mellow and melodic and its most rock and roll, moving from screeching guitar on “Bodysnatchers” into the bubbling and atmospheric “Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi”. The symphonic “Faust Arp” follows the wedding-favorite bass-driven “All I Need” to start off the back half of the record. Thom Yorke gives my favorite vocal performance of all time on “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, physically cranking the listener into the highest gear at the songs midpoint. The mixing is perfection, the album best listened to on your bassiest pair of headphones, streaming from a Pirate Bay torrent.

Turning 15 this October, In Rainbows is a generational indie rock record, a testament to the band’s longevity, and one of the most important moments in music history. The band started dialogue on the relationship between artist and consumer, changing the way people think about compensating creator’s for their creations (is pirating moral now?). Radiohead opened up new revenue streams for established and up-and-coming acts and inspired a decade of content delivery innovation – free uploads and streaming on Soundcloud, direct to consumer subscriptions on Twitch and OnlyFans, 24-hour music livestreams on YouTube, exclusive album releases paired with iPhones – and proved that people will pay for just about anything, even a free album.