In Rainbows

In 2004, after finishing the world tour for their sixth studio album, Hail to the Thief (2003), Radiohead went on hiatus. As Hail to the Thief was the final album released under their record contract with EMI, they had no contractual obligation to release new material. The New York Times described Radiohead as "by far the world's most popular unsigned band". He released his first solo album, The Eraser, in 2006. The lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, also composed his first solo works, the soundtracks Bodysong (2003) and There Will Be Blood (2007). == Recording ==

In March 2005, Radiohead began writing and recording in their Oxfordshire studio. They initially chose to work without their longtime producer, Nigel Godrich. According to the guitarist Ed O'Brien, "We were a little bit in the comfort zone ... We've been working together for 10 years, and we all love one another too much." The bassist, Colin Greenwood, later denied this, saying Godrich had been busy working with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck. , Berkeley, California, in 2006. Radiohead used the tour to test songs later recorded for In Rainbows.|alt= Regular recording sessions began that August, with Radiohead updating fans on their progress intermittently on their new blog, Dead Air Space. The sessions were slow, and the band struggled to regain confidence. According to Yorke, "We spent a long time in the studio just not going anywhere, wasting our time, and that was really, really frustrating." They attributed their slow progress to a lack of momentum after their break, In December 2005, Radiohead hired the producer Spike Stent, who had worked with artists including U2 and Björk, to help them work through their material. Stent listened to their self-produced work and agreed it was subpar. O'Brien said Radiohead decided to continue because "when you got beyond all the shit and the bollocks, the core of these songs were really good". According to Yorke, Godrich gave them "a walloping kick up the arse". To focus them, Godrich transferred their rhythm tracks to a single track, where they could not be further altered. According to Colin, "The idea was to make us commit to something ... It was as if we were sampling ourselves. And when you mash sounds together like that they cross-pollinate, they marinade, they interact with each other... They have little sonic babies." Yorke said the band attempted to create "a sense of disembodiment" by using elements from different versions of songs. For example, "All I Need" was assembled from takes from four different versions. , London For three weeks in October 2006, Radiohead worked at Tottenham House in Marlborough, Wiltshire, a country house scouted by Godrich. The band members lived in caravans, as the building was in a state of disrepair. Yorke wrote on Dead Air Space that Radiohead had "started the record properly now ... starting to get somewhere I think. Finally." Radiohead used several guitars borrowed from the guitarist Johnny Marr, including a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top and a 1964 Gibson SG. Colin contracted temporary hearing loss and tinnitus brought upon by faulty headphones. In December 2006, sessions took place at Halswell House in Taunton, and Godrich's studio at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, London, where Radiohead recorded "Videotape" and completed "Nude". In June, having finished recording, Godrich posted clips of songs on Dead Air Space. Feeling Hail to the Thief was overlong, Radiohead wanted their next album to be concise. Yorke said: "I believe in the rock album as an artistic form of expression. In Rainbows is a conscious return to this form of 45-minute statement ... Our aim was to describe in 45 minutes, as coherently and conclusively as possible, what moves us." They settled on 10 songs, saving the rest for In Rainbows Disk 2, the bonus disc included in the limited edition. Yorke recorded "Last Flowers", included on the bonus disc, in the Eraser sessions. Godrich said making In Rainbows had been an opportunity to "reconnect" for the band members, who had a "particular chemistry". ==Music==

In Rainbows incorporates elements of art rock, experimental rock, alternative rock, art pop, and electronica. O'Brien said Radiohead were hesitant to create an "epic" record, which they felt had negative associations of stadium rock. However, he conceded that "epic is also about beauty, like a majestic view, and what we did on this record was to allow the songs to be epic when they have to be". He cited "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" as an example of a song that was "obviously epic in scope". In another interview, Yorke said the album was about mortality and the realisation that he could die at any moment. O'Brien described the lyrics as universal and about "being human", with no political agenda. The opening track, "15 Step", features a quintuple meter and a handclap rhythm inspired by "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches. "Bodysnatchers", which Yorke described as a combination of Wolfmother, Neu! and "dodgy hippy rock", On "All I Need", Jonny Greenwood wanted to capture the white noise generated by a band playing loudly in a room, which never occurs in the studio. His solution was to have a string section play every note of the scale, blanketing the frequencies. Radiohead recorded a version of "Nude" during the OK Computer sessions, but discarded it. This version featured a Hammond organ, a "straighter" feel, and different lyrics. "Faust Arp" combines fingerpicked acoustic guitar and "syrupy" strings, which Pitchfork likened to the Beatles. Radioheaded developed "Reckoner" while working on another song, "FeelingPulledApartByHorses". Yorke described it as "a love song... sort of". He said the lyric "because we separate like ripples on a blank shore" was the centre of In Rainbows, and that "everything's leading to that point and then going away from that point". He described "House of Cards" as "mellow and summery", and likened it to the 1968 instrumental "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac. The lyrics were inspired by the chaos witnessed by Yorke when drinking in Oxford, a combination of elation and "a much darker side". He initially wanted it to be a "post-rave trance track", similar to the music of Surgeon, and said Jonny Greenwood was "obsessed" with shifting the start of the bar. For the album, Godrich and Greenwood reduced the song to a minimal piano ballad with percussion from a Roland TR-909 drum machine. ==Artwork==

The In Rainbows artwork was designed by Radiohead's longtime collaborator Stanley Donwood. Donwood worked in the studio while Radiohead worked on the album, allowing the artwork to convey the mood of the music. Donwood experimented with photographic etching, putting prints into acid baths and throwing wax at paper, creating images influenced by NASA space photography. He described the final artwork as "very colourful ... It's a rainbow but it is very toxic, it's more like the sort of one you'd see in a puddle." The limited edition includes a booklet containing additional artwork by Donwood. ==Release==

On 1 October 2007, Jonny Greenwood announced the album on Radiohead's blog, writing: "Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days; we've called it In Rainbows." The post contained a link to inrainbows.com, where users could pre-order an MP3 version of the album for any amount they wanted, including £0. He said the decision had not been made for financial gain, and that if money had been Radiohead's motivation they would have accepted an offer from Universal Records. The download was packaged as a ZIP file containing the album's ten tracks encoded in a 160 kbit/s DRM-free MP3 format. The staggered online release began at about 5:30am GMT on 10 October 2007. The download was removed on 10 December. Radiohead also sold a limited "discbox" edition from their website. It contained the album on CD and two 12" heavyweight 45 rpm vinyl records with artwork and lyric booklets, plus In Rainbows Disk 2, a CD with eight additional tracks, digital photos and artwork, packaged in a hardcover book and slipcase. The limited edition was shipped from December 2007. In June 2009, Radiohead made the In Rainbows bonus disc available for download on their website for £6. Radiohead ruled out an internet-only distribution, saying that 80% of people still bought physical releases and that it was important to have an "artefact" or "object". For the retail release, Radiohead retained ownership of the recordings and compositions but licensed the music to record labels. Licensing agreements were managed by Radiohead's publisher, Warner Chappell Music Publishing. In Rainbows was released on CD and vinyl in Japan by BMG on 26 December 2007, in Australia on 29 December 2007 by Remote Control Records, in the US by TBD Records, and in Canada by MapleMusic and Fontana on 1 January 2008. Elsewhere, it was released on 31 December 2007 by the independent record label XL Recordings, which had released Yorke's album The Eraser. The CD release came in a cardboard package containing the CD, lyric booklet, and stickers that could be placed on the blank jewel case to create cover art. Phil Costello, the head of TBD, said that including bonus songs on the CD release would have boosted initial sales, but did not suit Radiohead's long-term strategy. In Rainbows was the first Radiohead album available for download in several digital music stores, such as the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3. On 10 June 2016, it was added to the streaming service Spotify. Response The pay-what-you-want release, the first for a major musical act, attracted international media attention and sparked debate about the implications for the music industry. Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that "for the beleaguered recording business Radiohead has put in motion the most audacious experiment in years". The U2 singer, Bono, praised Radiohead as "courageous and imaginative in trying to figure out some new relationship with their audience". The rapper Jay-Z described the release as "genius", The release also drew criticism. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails thought it did not go far enough, and accused Radiohead of using a compressed digital release as a bait-and-switch to promote a traditional record sale. Reznor released his sixth album, Ghosts I–IV, under a Creative Commons licence the following year. The singer Lily Allen said the release was "arrogant" and sent a bad message to less successful acts, saying: "You don't choose how to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?" The Sonic Youth bassist, Kim Gordon, said the release "seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn't catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don't sell as many records [as Radiohead]. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever." The Guardian journalist Will Hodgkinson argued that Radiohead had made it impossible for less successful musicians to make a living from their music. Response from Radiohead Responding to criticisms, Jonny Greenwood said Radiohead were responding to the culture of downloading free music, which he likened to the legend of King Canute: "You can't pretend the flood isn't happening." Radiohead have not used the pay-what-you-want system for subsequent releases. In 2009, Message said he believed that peer-to-peer file sharing should be legal, and advocated for government intervention to force internet service providers to pay artists. Piracy In Rainbows was released when CD sales were falling due to internet piracy. An unidentified executive at a major European label told Time: "This feels like yet another death knell. If the best band in the world doesn't want a part of us, I'm not sure what's left for this business." However, BigChampagne concluded that the music industry should not think of piracy as lost sales, as Radiohead had shown that even releasing music free had not deterred it. Based on this report, Wired concluded that "by 'losing' the battle for the email addresses of those who downloaded their album via bit torrent, [Radiohead] actually won the overall war for the public's attention – no easy feat, these days". Dispute with EMI (pictured in 2019), clashed with Radiohead in public statements. As Radiohead's recording contract with EMI ended in 2003, Radiohead recorded In Rainbows without a record label. Shortly before work began, Yorke told Time: "I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'fuck you' to this decaying business model." Executives including Keith Wozencroft, who had signed Radiohead to EMI, travelled regularly to Radiohead's studio in hopes of negotiating a new contract. According to Eamonn Forde, the author of The Final Days of EMI, Radiohead had lost faith in EMI and thought the new ownership would be a "bloodbath". Yorke and Radiohead's management released statements denying this, and said that they had instead wanted control over their back catalogue, which Hands had refused. Hands defended the reissues as necessary to boost EMI's revenues and said "we don't have a huge amount of reasons to be nice [to Radiohead]". ==Promotion==

Webcasts Following the release of In Rainbows, Radiohead broadcast two webcasts from their Oxfordshire studio: "Thumbs Down" in November 2007 and "Scotch Mist" on New Year's Eve. In the US, "Scotch Mist" was also broadcast on Current TV. Colin Greenwood described the webcasts as spontaneous and liberating, bypassing the usual lengthy process of commissioning music videos. followed by "Nude" on 31 March. Both songs were accompanied by music videos directed by Buxton and Jennings. Radiohead held remix competitions for "Nude" and "Reckoner", releasing the separated stems for purchase, and streamed the entries on their website. "Nude" debuted at number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100; boosted by sales of the stems, it was the first Radiohead song to enter the chart since "High and Dry" (1995) and Radiohead's first US top-40 song since their debut single, "Creep" (1992). "Reckoner" reached number 74 on the UK singles chart and number 21 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, a 25-song extension of the Hot 100. In March, Radiohead and the animation company Aniboom ran a competition asking entrants to submit concepts for animated music videos for In Rainbows. Semifinalists were chosen by TBD Records and the Cartoon Network programming block Adult Swim. Unable to choose only one winner, Radiohead awarded the full prize money of $10,000 each to four semifinalists, who created videos for "15 Step", "Weird Fishes", "Reckoner" and "Videotape". A video for "All I Need" premiered on MTV on 1 May, produced with MTV EXIT, an initiative to raise awareness of human trafficking and modern slavery. It depicts a day in the lives of two children: a boy in the west from an affluent area, and a boy in the east forced to work in a sweatshop which produces shoes worn by the western boy. In July, Radiohead released a video for "House of Cards", made with lidar technology instead of cameras. Live performances On 16 January 2008, a surprise Radiohead performance at the London record shop Rough Trade East was relocated to a nearby club after police raised safety concerns. Radiohead toured North America, Europe, South America and Japan from May 2008 until March 2009. To determine how they could reduce carbon emissions, Radiohead commissioned the environmental group Best Foot Forward. Based on the findings, Radiohead played in amphitheatres rather than smaller venues and focused on playing in city centres to reduce reliance on flights for attendees. They also used a carbon-neutral "forest" of LEDs on stage. Radiohead recorded a live video, In Rainbows — From the Basement, broadcast on VH1 in May 2008. In February 2009, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed "15 Step" with the University of Southern California Marching Band at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. ==Sales==

Digital In early October 2007, a Radiohead spokesperson reported that most downloaders paid "a normal retail price" for the digital version of In Rainbows, and that most fans had pre-ordered the limited edition. Citing a source close to the band, Gigwise reported that In Rainbows had sold 1.2 million digital copies before its retail release; this was dismissed by Radiohead's co-manager Bryce Edge as "exaggerated". Of those who paid, the average paid was $6 globally, with 12% paying between $8 and $12, around the typical cost of an album on iTunes. but said the results had been good. In December 2007, Yorke said that Radiohead had made more money from digital sales of In Rainbows than the digital sales of their previous albums combined. In 2009, Wired reported that Radiohead had made an "instantaneous" £3 million from the album. Retail Because inrainbows.com is not a chart-registered retailer, In Rainbows download and limited edition sales were not eligible for inclusion in the UK Albums Chart. In the week of its retail release, In Rainbows reached number one on the UK Albums Chart, with first-week sales of 44,602 copies. In the US, after some record stores broke street date agreements, it entered the Billboard 200 at number 156. In the first week of official release, it became the 10th independent album to reach number one on the Billboard 200, selling 122,000 copies. In October 2008, Warner Chappell reported that In Rainbows had sold three million copies worldwide since its retail release, including 1.75 million physical sales. It was the bestselling vinyl album of 2008. ==Critical reception==

In Rainbows was met with widespread critical acclaim. On the review aggregate site Metacritic, In Rainbows has a rating of 88 out of 100 based on 42 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Andy Kellman of AllMusic wrote that it "will hopefully be remembered as Radiohead's most stimulating synthesis of accessible songs and abstract sounds, rather than their first pick-your-price download". Will Hermes, writing in Entertainment Weekly, called In Rainbows "the gentlest, prettiest Radiohead set yet" and stated that it "uses the full musical and emotional spectra to conjure breathtaking beauty". Spins Mikael Wood felt that it "succeeds because all of that cold, clinical lab work hasn't eliminated the warmth from their music", Robert Christgau, writing for MSN Music, gave In Rainbows a two-star honourable mention and wrote that it was "more jammy, less songy and less Yorkey, which is good". The Wire was more critical, finding "a sense here of a group magisterially marking time, shying away ... from any grand, rhetorical, countercultural purpose". In 2011, The Rolling Stone Album Guide described In Rainbows as Radiohead's "most expansive and seductive album, possibly their all-time high". In 2023, Selway said it was his favourite Radiohead album. He said it combined "everything that we'd been learning over two decades, and it seemed to land in quite a concise way ... It feels like a band that have learned to play their instruments together but have been able to spend long enough doing that so the playing reaches a new level." In 2024, the Rolling Stone critic Andy Greene said In Rainbows had completed perhaps "one of the best 12-year runs in rock history, maybe even the very best one". In 2009, the Nasa astronaut Mike Massimino played a copy of In Rainbows in orbit. Accolades In Rainbows was ranked among the best albums of 2007 by many music publications. It was ranked first by Billboard, Mojo and PopMatters, third by NME and The A.V. Club, fourth by Pitchfork and Q, and sixth by Rolling Stone and Spin. Paste, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and Newsweek. In Rainbows was nominated for the short list of the 2008 Mercury Prize, and won the Grammy awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards. It was also nominated for Grammy awards for Album of the Year and Producer of the Year, Non-Classical (for Godrich), and "House of Cards" was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song and Best Music Video. In Rainbows was included in the updated 2014 edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Rolling Stone included it in its lists of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time at number 336 in 2012 and number 387 in 2020. In 2019, the Guardian named In Rainbows the 11th-greatest album of the 21st century so far. In 2011, NME ranked "Reckoner" the 93rd-best track of the preceding 15 years, and Pitchfork named it the 254th-greatest song of the decade. In 2020, Rolling Stone named In Rainbows one of the 40 most groundbreaking albums for its pay-what-you want release, influencing acts such as Beyoncé and U2. In 2021, Pitchfork readers voted it the fourth-greatest album of the previous 25 years, and in 2025 Paste named it the 167th-greatest album of the 21st century so far. ==Track listing==

The special edition of In Rainbows included a second disc, In Rainbows Disk 2, which contains eight additional tracks. "Go Slowly" is a tense, "ghostly" song with guitars, glockenspiel and synthesisers. In Rolling Stone, David Fricke wrote that "if you bought the deluxe box edition of In Rainbows just for the session leftovers, you did not get your eighty dollars' worth", but conceded that the songs "deserve to be on record". Track listing ==Personnel==

Adapted from the In Rainbows liner notes. Radiohead • Thom Yorke • Jonny Greenwood • Ed O'Brien • Colin Greenwood • Philip Selway Additional musicians • Sally Herbert – conductor • The Millennia Ensemble – string • Everton Nelson – concertmaster Other personnel • Nigel Godrich – producer, mixing engineer, recording engineer • Graeme Stewart – pre-production • Richard Woodcraft, Hugo Nicolson, Dan Grech-Marguerat – recording engineer • Bob Ludwig – mastering engineer • Stanley Donwood, Dr Tchock – artwork ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications and sales==

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|artist=Radiohead|title=In Rainbows|award=Gold|salesamount=500,000^ / 1,020,000|salesref= ==References==