BY TEJAS SATHIAN AND JOEY MICHALAKES

“How come I end up where I started?” muses Thom Yorke, Radiohead’s lead vocalist, in the opening line of the British band’s long-awaited album, In Rainbows. The lyric captures the essence of the societal boredom that has thematically anchored Radiohead’s music for the past 15 years. The band has never shied away from social and cultural commentary—and tacit political critique. For instance, the 2003 album Hail to the Thief was widely interpreted as a jab at the Bush administration.

Specific references to politics, however, are merely instruments for Radiohead to illuminate the deeper existential problems confronting the individual in modern society. In Rainbows is no exception to this trend, and while the message of alienation and monotony that propels the album is familiar to fans of the band, the lyrics and novel musical patterns render it a fresh view of a well-worn theme.

All Alone
The sense of alienation echoes a theme developed throughout Radiohead’s catalog. While its landmark 1997 release OK Computer addressed the schism that technology imposes among individuals, the band’s focus with In Rainbows is murkier and more general. In “Bodysnatchers,” the heaviest-hitting track on the album, Yorke howls: “I have no idea what I am talking about / I’m trapped in this body and I can’t get out.” The lyric suggests that even our fundamental self-awareness can erode in the face of a political and social landscape that is constantly in flux.

Elsewhere on In Rainbows, Radiohead wrestles with the social effects of the same existential uncertainty. “House of Cards” suggests in its opening lines that a sense of anxiety permeates and ultimately trivializes interpersonal relationships: “I don’t want to be your friend / I just want to be your lover.” While “House of Cards” is the album’s closest approximation of a love song, it also hints at the breakdown in the broader social fabric, warning that the “infrastructure will collapse” like a house of cards “swept under the table.” The attentive listener can only wonder whether the line references real-life collapses in New Orleans and Iraq. The allusion cements the album’s characterization of the modern world as a deeply unsettling place.

The Song Remains the Same…But Different
In Rainbows, while substantive, is hardly revolutionary. The album’s social commentary repeats a message developed in past releases, while musically, the album sounds decidedly less experimental than its predecessors. What distinguishes In Rainbows is the remarkable interdependence between lyrical subjects and the supporting musical substructure. On nearly every track, Yorke’s vocal forays into the themes of monotony and alienation are founded on a central recurring and usually repetitive musical motif.

The musical essence of “Videotape,” the album’s brooding closer, is a four-chord piano sequence and sparse percussion rhythm that imbues this boredom with an undercurrent of sobriety. Meanwhile, the ascending guitar progression that introduces “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” fosters an ambivalent reflection on the same feeling. The ultimate effect of this musical uniformity is somewhat paradoxical. While the band itself sounds bored, the product that the band creates is not at all boring, due to the fascinating interplay between the music and the lyrics.

A New Direction?
Monotony is central not only to the musical content of the album but, also, to the broader context of its release. Perhaps Radiohead’s dissatisfaction with the state of the recording industry compelled it to release In Rainbows in a manner as unconventional as posting the album online and allowing users to download it for a price of their choosing. In response to the uproar over illegal file-sharing and the heavy-handed response of major record companies, Radiohead has eschewed the mainstream approach to record-release in favor of this novel experiment. This strategy may not prove sustainable, however, as one initial study suggested that only 38 percent of listeners chose to pay for the album download.

This democratization of art may be an attempt by a band at the zenith of its creative powers to shake up a music scene that many perceive to have gone stale. Or it may represent a legitimate social and political statement. Regardless of whether this model changes the paradigm of the industry, In Rainbows, in its musical expression, shines on its own. ]]>