In Rainbows – Radiohead

Welcome and Mailbag Return

0:00I'm Adam Ennis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast. Music Explored. Explored. Brought to you today by OpenStudio. Go to OpenStudioJazz.com for Oh, your jazz lesson needs Peter. We're back. It feels like we're back. We're back. Where did we go? I don't know. We were here, but we weren't doing anything. I'm feeling in the groove. Good. About time. I know. My friend. I haven't been in the groove. I'm locked in right now. Hey, we are, speaking of back, we're bringing something back. I know. I'm so excited about this. It's called the speak pipe. Many people have never heard of it. No. So we want to do a mailbag episode where we hear from you. If you go to You'llHearIt.com. Mailbag! If you go to You'llHearIt.com, you could leave us a message.

0:59So go to You'llHearIt.com. You could leave us a voicemail. We can't promise that you'll get your voicemail read on the air, but we are going to take some questions for the audience. It could be about anything. It could be about these albums, about the show, about music, whatever, OpenStudio, you name it. I got a question. Yeah. How come y'all so dope? That's something someone could ask us. Is how come y'all so dope? Yes. Please ask. That's just an example. Feel free to say whatever you want. Peter's got ideas. Yeah. Peter, today, this is a continuation. This is an evolution.

Radiohead In Rainbows

1:29As a crazy experiment. Yeah. We put on the docket Radiohead's 2000, in my opinion, masterpiece Kid A. Yeah. You had never really heard the album. We listened to it. You gave it a try. You seemed to like it. Yeah. Yeah. You seemed to really like it. I was curious and then I was enraptured somewhat. Yeah. It's a fantastic album.

1:59I was on Instagram about what is your all-time favorite Radiohead album. Now, being exennial as I am, I assumed it was going to be Kid A. Not a thing. Not even close. It was the album that we're listening to today. It was in Rainbows. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought we were listening to Robert Glasper and Brad Meldow play. See, this is how he gets me in here. Adam's like, we're going to check out another Radiohead. We totally could listen to a whole album of Robert Glasper and Brad Meldow play Radiohead. But I joke. That would be fun.

The next one, whenever we listen to OK Computer, I'm going to tell you that it's all- And Adam Manistrio plays. Oh, yeah. No, we do a version of Weird Fishes here, which we're going to talk about a little bit. But no, we're doing In Rainbows. This was released in 2007. It has such an interesting release story, Peter. But before we get that release story going, let's listen to the first track, 15 Step.

2:50And again, we're kind of looking for Peter's reaction. Can Radiohead keep Peter's attention past Kid A?

Listening to 15 Step

3:011, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2. That's true.

3:32Beautiful chords.

3:48So we're in 5-4 here. Yeah. Starting off this album with an odd time signature. It's a great program. An album that sold 3 million copies. Right. That's a great, really great program drum sound. Oh, it sounds amazing. And then combined with the- That's Tom York, right? Yep. I mean, like the- Look at him. That's Tom York singing. See, I'm- I know. I knew it wasn't Robert Glasper, at least. I think it's not. No, I- But we talked about this last time. He has such a unique voice. But the way they have it placed here, very difficult to-

4:22With the guitar, sort of the bridge between the humanity of the voice and the potential automation. They're actually using the automation of the drums. They're not hiding from that. Yeah. Like, that's part of the shtick on this, and I love it. Well, during this whole era, they're flirting with this, like, the mechanical, industrial, and then organic- Mechanical-industrial complex. They took over Guitar Center. It's a big problem. I believe it is a mix of acoustic and electric drums throughout this, but that program, drums, is so strong there. And I love these chords here that make up the main riff of the song.

4:56It's like an A-flat minor to a D-flat major to an E-flat minor. It's like an A-flat Dorian mode, which is kind of an odd mode for one of these kinds of songs. It's kind of a forlorn- like, it's nostalgic, but kind of wistful, wispy, forlorn a little bit. It's evocative of a mansion in the rain, and somebody would just be eating Yorkshire pudding. No, they're in Yorkshire. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. No, it's interesting because, like, I think this is a great- Who took my pudding?

5:27Sorry. That was random. Yeah, no, that was definitely what they were saying over there. No, that's Johnny Greenwood. This sounds just like that. Who took my pudding? But, no, it's a really high-energy first track. You know, it's not my favorite, like, first track on a Radiohead album. I don't think you can do better than everything in this right place. Wait, did you say it's not my favorite and Radiohead in the same sentence? I never thought I'd hear the game. I have many opinions, but I think it's awesome. I think it, like, sets the stage for what this is. What is great about 15 Step is that it sets the stage with what makes In Rainbows so good and what makes it so popular is because, like, In Rainbows is Radiohead sort of getting back

6:03to a very guitar-based sound. Like, when we listen to K-Day, lots of synthesizers, a lot of, like- But that was very intentional, right? Very intentional. They were getting away from guitar-based stuff, right? A little bit of a reaction. Like, we want some more atmospheric stuff, right? We want some of ambient music's influences. And this is them going back to a little bit of, like, a great mix between some of that, like, the program drums and the sort of ambient synths. But almost the entire album, the guitars have really come back to take the lead as the instrument.

6:33Whereas, like, throughout Kid A, throughout Amnesiac, even Hail to the Thief, the piano is pretty heavy on all that. And all the keyboards are pretty heavy on that. Yeah. So I think that's why this is so successful. It's like they're at a place in their career where they're balancing these two things. Well, it's interesting. I think you mentioned, as we were prepping beforehand, that this album in Rainbows has had a resurgence amongst, like, we think of this, oh, it's 2007. It was just a few years ago. No, that would be 19 years ago, my friend. I know. But you said with younger folks, kind of 20s now?

7:05Well, no, no. These would be 30s, like, basically like millennials who were teenagers in 2007. So for me, in 2007, I'm, like, almost 30 years old. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, like, for me, Nostalgic Radiohead is OK Computer. It's from 1997. It's from 2000, right? And so Radiohead had such a big high point of their career, like such a good peak over the course of probably 12 years. They were really at a good artistic peak that this is, I think, their last great album,

7:35in my opinion. I love the last two albums. I think they're wonderful. But I think this is when they really had their last great artistic push. And so, like, for me, like, a mid-millennial, a young millennial, I think they feel very nostalgic about this album. Because whenever we talk, first of all, they're a huge generation. They're a lot of people. It is, right. So in all those polls that I was talking about, they just, like, in rainbows, just crushed. And I think when I talk to a lot of Gen X Radiohead fans, it's always Kid A, OK Computer. This is past the... Yeah. Right. And that's, so you're kind of, yeah, now I'm seeing how you're sort of straddling between

8:09that, because I know you love this album, but there's definitely some, you know, when we first talked about which radiohead, we had a little meeting about it, remember? Yeah. And you thought this was going to be like a meeting of equals. It was not. It was me saying, well, whatever, whichever one you like best, go with that one. Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting, too, just saying, because it's been resurgent, because this, I see the notes here, it did sell three million copies in the first year. So it wasn't a slow burn, I would imagine. For 2007, that's really, really good. And no big, like, hits on it or anything, really. No, it's a radiohead album. There never is.

8:40There never is. And was the best-selling vinyl record of 2008. Talk about a little mini resurgence of vinyl. This is right before vinyl was about to start even resurging. It sold 17 copies on vinyl.

8:53Best-selling. Which in 2008, that puts you on the chart. Kind of Blue sold 16. Another interesting thing about the release of In Rainbows, which I remember this happening because I thought it was so cool and so interesting. Yeah. There was very little press around the release. I think they announced it, like, the week before. Yeah. Hey, we're coming out with our new album. They were off of a major label. Right. So they had, they left, what was it, EMI, I think, is the label they were on. They left EMI, and they were self-releasing this, and they, for the digital download, it was pay what you want.

9:24I remember this now. This was really the first time at scale anyone had done this, right? It was kind of a big deal. It was a very big deal. And I remember buying this for $5 because, you know, I was a traveling musician. And wasn't there even, like, a thing with, they even had something variant on it with iTunes, with the Apple iTunes, where you could get on the store. I don't remember. And it was some kind of funny pricing or something. Oh, maybe, like, later. Or maybe they were trying to get it paid, and they were, Steve Jobs was like. No, you could go to Radiohead's website and literally put in $0 if you wanted to. But, you know, what's funny is, no one knows for sure, but I read that they probably averaged

9:55between $6 and $8, and because there was no label in between, this was, for them, a very commercially successful album. Interesting. Because they kept all of the money that they made. Mostly on virtual product, not on... Yeah. So there's no overhead. So I'm sure they sell, you know, however many copies of Kid A on CD for $16.99 and $2,000. Yeah. Maybe more than this. Wholesale price, $6 or $7 or something. Yeah, exactly. And then the label takes and whatever. This is, like, all them, which is really smart, you know, especially if you have that kind

10:28of power. I feel like Prince around this time, maybe it was a little later, or maybe even at the same time, was definitely trying some things like this, too. Yeah. It was such an interesting kind of Wild West. Like, what's going to... Yeah. Like, everyone still loves music, but how is it going to be consumed? Because it was, like, post, like, Napster, mostly. Totally. There was, like, the Napster scare, and this is, like, the bands being like, no, we can do this ourselves. And remember, the labels were trying to, like, do some jankety online where, like, you had to sign up for the... But you could only get stuff on that label. Apple was really the only ones who had kind of figured it out with the iTunes. Yeah. But even that was, like, plug in the iPod.

11:00Yeah. Which was fun. There were, like... So, the comedian, Louis C.K., I remember, he'd sell his specials off of his website. Like, you could pay $10 or whatever for a digital download of the special instead of on iTunes or whatever. So, this was that time where people were really taking advantage of that post-Napster, pre-Spotify kind of vibes, you know? Yeah. So, okay.

Listening to Body Snatchers

11:22The second track is Body Snatchers.

11:25And again, driving guitars. This is not something you would hear, like, you know, three or four years ago as much. I do not understand what it is I don't want to follow the holes Check for calls Lick your eyes Won't forget

11:56To follow I have no idea what I'll talk about I'm trying to let his body's get out I feel like those single-note synth lines

12:36Yeah. It's like when you hear Stevie layering the single-note synths Yeah. in his classic era This is classic era Radiohead where you hear those warbly single-note synths that come in and create this eerie line And they're almost more like, you know, affecting the music harmonically than melodic I mean, their melody line's almost secondary to the harmony You know, that's what came in and kind of pushed things Very interesting Wow, this is one vocal take

13:21Left virtually untouched First take Interesting And again, the warbly synth And the harmony there And he's so Tom Hork is so far placed back in the mix Yeah, yeah And this one Tucked right in there That's what I love about the way they Much more than the first track I love the second half of this song Now this As little as I know about radiohead As soon as I hear that kind of Was that keyboard or guitar? That's acoustic guitar

13:52Man, I would immediately know it's radiohead To me, this is like classic This is gorgeous They have so many songs that are like this That are kind of like A, B, A, B, C You know, and the last minute and a half Is something completely different And always so harmonically interesting

14:24Like that could just If that were in the hands of another Sort of rock band from that time It's going to stay pretty straightforward The producer's going to be like No, guys, we got to keep it Yeah Palatable or whatever But they're adding all this Like when that warbly synth comes in And it's going to those weird minor six chords Yeah And minor major seven chords And then the end has, you know, like these The classic, like, you know The minor chord over the third Like that's another huge thing with their harmony

14:55I love it, man It's, I'm such a sucker for it Hey everyone, taking a break real quick We throw around a lot of music theory terms here in the show If you're Googling things like What is a triad? Hold on, I'm Googling What is a triad? What is a Lydian chord? How do you spell Lydian? You know how to say that, bro Good news We have all the answers for you In the liner notes You'll find the liner notes companion guide With clear, simple explanations Of the concepts we explore in this episode In the episode description Download the liner notes for this episode

15:25For free today The next track This is actually one of their oldest songs They could never find a version that they liked In all their years of recording Until 2007

Listening to Nude

15:35This is called Nude

15:47The next track The next track The next track The next track Thank you.

16:21The contrasting textures here, the dry drums, and the wet vocals. Yeah.

16:51There's so much intentionality to their harmonic progression. Very clear in life. I mean, we talked about this when we talked about OK Computer, but it's no wonder that a lot of modern jazz musicians really respond to this music well. You could hear someone, like a young modern jazz musician, writing a tune that sounds

17:24like this. Yeah, and I think for folks that are like, what are you talking about? This isn't jazz. How the hell do you hear that? That there's a certain type of, I mean, it's really composition. I mean, yes, there's the songwriting part of it. But I think for this kind of thing, it's really the composition. There could be any style. You know, I don't even know what we would call this style or genre. But when a jazz musician hears it, like we're connecting, I would say primarily with the

17:56harmony and like how the harmony changes. And that's when we talk about the changes. Yeah. It's primarily a harmonic thing. And then we start thinking about, oh, how could we adapt that? Not necessarily just, I know a lot of times we get a bad rap for like, yeah, mess it up and ruin it. But it's more like, is there something there that inspires, not unlike the tradition coming out, like the bebop musicians taking Cole Porter's song. Great American Songbook songs. Great American Songbooks. Well, and it is the harmony. And. Because if it doesn't have that, like you have to manufacture it.

18:28Yeah. Which. We might do that anyway. Yeah, we might do that anyway. But also I think it's the way the melody and the harmony interact. Like. For sure. There's a lot of these long held notes where the harmony changes underneath in an interesting way. Right. That's like a Wayne Shorter thing. You know what I mean? Like. But if you think about like the great pop songs that have beautiful melodies and they don't have those necessarily interesting things with the harmony underneath. When we'll typically, when a jazz musician would take that, we have to create all that ourselves. Right? Yeah. And maybe we shouldn't be, but that's what we do. Whereas with this type of material, I can definitely hear it on that.

19:01And this is, I correct myself, there was a hit. This was actually a top 40 hit. This was in the U.S. and the U.K. Oh, it was. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Number 37. Wow. But. First U.S. top 40 hit since Creep. Right. Crazy. Yeah. Wow. Well, as you said before, they were not, that was not their jam. No. To put on a bunch of singles. What was that? Oh yeah. So the harmony underneath, when there's already some interesting things, actually we don't need to do as much with this type of material. Same way with a great, you know, sort of standard tune that you don't have to re-harmonize and stuff. So it's not, it's more, I think, comes from a fairly organic place for jazz musicians

19:37to take different, it's not about like, oh, let me jazz up radiohead because I always loved that, but now I want to turn it into what I want to do. It's more like we hear something there. We hear possibilities. Yeah. Beyond that. But not like we're having to take it apart so much, we should have just written our own tune. Although some people say that. It's true. It's true. But when it's done well. When it's done well. When it's done well. It like, it feeds us. It's an extension maybe of it. It feeds us enough like nutrients, musical nutrients that we can like really dig in. You're saying it feeds our soul. Yes. Yes. The next track is, this might be my favorite track on the album.

20:10Yep. So much so that I got a little surprise for everybody after we listened to it.

Listening to Weird Fishes Arpeggi

20:14This is Weird Fish's Arpeggi.

20:18I love the bass here.

20:48In fourths.

20:52And then up to the octave. Yeah. Yeah, nice.

20:57I wish there was a simple way to learn that. Me too. More soon. In the deepest ocean. The bottom of the sea. Your eyes.

21:28Why should I stay here? Why should I stay here? Why should I stay here?

21:53Can we get an angsty movie to throw this in the soundtrack? Oh, I'm sure there's been a few movies this has been on. Teenage angst. I'll be crazy not too far. It just keeps building.

22:10Adding layers. Things are swirling. I tried to... We play this song in my trio. And maybe we'll do a version for this show. But I tried to figure out the pattern in that swirling main guitar. And it's not random, but it's also not consistent. It's not square. Yeah. It's like they're kind of just playing it. Yeah. And I think whoever is playing that, probably Johnny Greenwood, is like doing whatever he wants with it. When it's interesting to you, you hear as the different layers come in, as the intensity grows, the one thing that's not changing, I don't think at all, is the drum groove.

22:44Well, like you had that cymbal crash, which hadn't been there in a while. Now it's opening up. Now it's opening up. But that was a long way of discipline of that same pattern. For sure. But using the other elements, whereas the drums is the most obvious one. Now you save that.

22:58Now you've got it. Everything's open, right?

23:04Now there's guitars, there's synths, serve him. Definitely more guitar heavy, though. You're right.

23:16And then he moves into that background vocal, which has a lot more verb and effect on it.

23:23And then all of a sudden, it feels like we're in a fish tank.

23:27And all of a sudden, his voice is dry completely. Totally dry. But it's a weird fish. A dry fish. That's a great build and breakdown. Yeah.

24:21Guitars are back in it now. Again, it's that two distinct sections.

24:52Yeah. It's just the whole end of the song is totally different. Right. It's not going to go back. Two stories. Yeah.

25:00Yeah, once they broke down without the drums, it was like either going to stay there or if they came back in. Which I did. It's something different. It's great. Man, their use of large form within these songs that are not that long actually, but each one kind of feels epic because of their mastery of form and balance in terms of how the music is presented. Totally. Which is really certainly the composition, but also the production. And one thing about In Rainbows is this might be the most complete album

25:30where there's really no filler on it. I mean, every song is very, very solid. Not that there's ever that many skippable tracks at all on a Radiohead album, but man, everything is so slamming on this. And this song in particular is... Are you in its right place? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, everything's in its right place. Hey, Peter, remember last week I made a lesson to teach beginners how to play Isn't She Lovely from Songs in the Key of Life? Mm-hmm. Well, I did it again. Whoops. He did it again. No, not yet. That's later this season, yeah. No, I took a song from In Rainbows.

26:01I took Weird Fishes, and I made a lesson aimed at people who have never played piano before. So if you want to learn how to play Weird Fishes on the piano and you've never even touched a piano before, or maybe you took lessons years ago, I don't know. Yeah. I'm going to show you how to do that. It's starting to become a little bit of a club, a little bit of a club for players. Oh, so you're saying like a player's club. A little bit of a player's club. Yeah. I like it. I've been having such a blast making these lessons. I show you exactly what to do, where to put your hands. We even had our producer, Liz, try this, and she is an alien.

26:32Really? I didn't even know Liz had a piano. Me neither. That's awesome. This is a bit of a first for Open Studio where we're teaching even early beginners how to play. Right. And this is not a free offering, we want to be clear, but it is a value-packed offering, so I'm excited about it. It really is. So go check it out. I'll teach you how to play Weird Fishes. And you can learn how to play Isn't She Lovely, too. We're calling this series of lessons The Player's Club. You can find out more at the show notes. Go check it out. Now, I mean... Track number five, right? Track number five. Now we're really getting into some great stuff.

Listening to All I Need

27:01This is all I need. That's a fat bass sound. It really is.

27:33I think I'm going F. PH. Maybe. I'm the next step Waiting in the wind I'm an animal Trapped in your car I am all the days

28:08That you choose to ignore You're all I need You're all I need What I love about this is where it sits. So we're coming out of the thickest song on the album, Just those swirling guitars and sits for four minutes.

28:41Yeah. And then we just go to a bass line and a vocal. Yeah. Simple drum. And I love what this is. This was assembled from four different takes. Oh, really? Yes.

28:51And they actually did this at some other place in the album, but this is kind of the thickest version of that. Vocals from one take, drums from another. And they kind of picked all the best bits and forced them together. Tom York called it deliberate disembodiment. Wow. Yeah. Next up, we've got Faust Arp. These are featuring strings from the Millennia Ensemble conducted by Sally Herbert. Y2K! Everton Nelson. What's up? This is also, this is a great song. You survived! Faust Arp.

Listening to Faust Arp

29:20One, two, three, four.

29:32One, three, right? One. Awesome.

29:40Yeah. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

29:50I think that's the earliest. It's very famous here.

29:54Yeah.

29:58Well, who was it that called it?

30:05Tom York called it their revolver, this album. Oh, that makes total sense, actually. He called it Radiohead. Later on. Super interesting. Wow. I never heard that. This is also like the earliest I've ever heard Tom York enter a song. Yeah. Yeah, he comes right away. He's usually like, get the vibe happening, and then I'll get there when I get there. Let me know when the party's started. So true to you. Let me know when the angst is elevated, then I'm entering. Great call.

30:34Yeah, but it's very Beatles-esque. And with the strings, like, super, like, present. Yeah. You know, whenever Beatles bring in the strings, they'll be like, boom.

30:46Ooh, that's a well-recorded, well-played guitar. The balance between the bass tenor strings and the low bass comes in there for the first time. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't spend, like, tens of hours mixing each of these tracks. For sure. A lot of intentionality in the mix.

31:21Yeah. Mm.

31:23Two minutes. That's all you need. Yeah. And so when we talk about mix, I know sometimes people will be like, what do you mean they spend time mixing it up when they're playing? So it's like, no, after the track is finished, I have the feeling with them, too, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Radiohead, let me text Robert Glasper and see who can out-radiohead who. Can we please get Robert Glasper on the show and we can just listen to what he wants to listen to? I'm really interested in what is on his playlists. Right. So when we talk about putting the track together, you know, rehearsing, recording, and, like, on the track before this, the, this, for all I need for the, using different tracks to assemble it.

32:07That's still not mixing. Like, the mixing process starts, I'm telling you, like, you know this because you've done this. This is for the dear listeners. Yeah. The mixing process traditionally starts in earnest once everything is done musically. The whole thing is- Ideally. Ideally. Although, actually, you know what? There's a lot of mixing that goes on as it goes. I know, I know. But traditionally, like, you've got the track, at a certain point you have to be like, the music is what it is. But you would be shocked at how much the, especially I know on an album like this, the mix affects the music. And by its very most, you know, basic definition, the mix is just how much guitar there is, how loud it is.

32:44Yeah. In relation to the drums, in relation to the vocal. Like, that's just the basic thing. And moving those, and so when you talk about a mixer, it's like pushing those, let's try it with this. But it's also like, well, no, just push up the vocals a little bit for that one word or pull it back. That's called active mixing. And sometimes, you know, comping of the tracks happens in the mix because you hear things in a new way and you're like, should we take out that four-bar section? That happens. But then the other big part of the mix is like how each of the tracks or the instruments sound. So like, you know, you brought up a couple times when how wet or how dry a vocal is, you know, reverb, not EQ, pushing up the high.

33:21I mean, there's so many different things you would be shocked. So somebody who mixes an album, and I have the feeling that I'm sure Greenwood and Tom York and stuff were very involved with it. I mean, it just feels like that kind of band, right? For sure. Where they're very involved with the mix, with the engineer, with the producer. I mean, compared to like acoustic music that we make, where the mix is maybe 10, 15% of the art on the album. Right. Right? You would say like. Yeah, and just the amount of time spent compared to. Although it can get, it can get pushed too. It's like 50% or more. Yeah. On an album like this.

33:52Like, it's so important. Like you mentioned, like when Tom York's vocals go dry in that breakdown of Weird Fishes, that is an incredible artistic choice. Right. Like that's art happening in the mix. Yeah. I mean, it affects the music as much as like the harmony that was chosen. Yeah, totally. When to drop the drums out. And I'm sure for most of this, if not all of it, they have total isolation. I mean, that's another reason like in a lot of acoustic music or jazz or whatever, classical, there's not as much put onto mix because you can't. Mix things separately because there's like bleeding through and stuff like this. But the fact that they piece some of these things together from different takes on different instruments would indicate that they had total separation.

34:27So you can do any more. And a lot of times people overmix and get too active with it. Well, I mean, since we're talking about reverb, we're talking about this next track, Reckoner, which is one of my favorite Radiohead tracks of all time.

Listening to Reckoner

34:38Isn't it Rick Connor? Rick Connor. I think it's Reckoner. And it's also one of my favorite reverbs ever. Woo!

34:48That's like big empty hall, like Fox Theater reverb. It reminds me of these Brazilian albums in the 70s that were, you know, Samba School albums. Right. Sounded like they were recorded in a cave. Right. Drums in a big hall like that. Yeah. So unbelievable.

35:13The guitar doesn't have it. I don't think.

35:17Yeah, it's just a drum.

35:20The song came out of a jam. Yeah. Loose group jam, apparently. But Tom York's melody throughout here is haunting.

35:31See, that's the normal time when Tom York comes in. That's right. The party started. 50 seconds. He's not a, oh, party's at 8, I'll be there at 8. Yeah, he's coming to 10.30. He's going to roll up up there. It's a five-chord phrase.

36:08It's, you know what I mean? That verse part. Man, that gives it such a, it's so like that, but it just gives it just enough. It's jarring in the most subtle way when you do that. For sure. It's great.

36:38Very subtle. It gives you this rolling but unsettled macro environment. You can hear Charles Lloyd playing this song. You know what I mean? Like, just this soulful, uneasy, but... It's a radiohead song. We've got to have a whole different part.

37:09Breakdown. Yeah. Breakdown or break apart?

37:16This hook.

37:18Now, this is all totally dry. Yeah. Beautiful.

37:37Yeah.

37:42Yeah. There's at least two different angles on how that whole section you could feel the time and then when the drums came back in

38:12and totally reset it.

38:15I'm telling you, man, every song on this one,

Listening to House of Cards

38:19one after the other. This next song, House of Cards, had a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Short Form Music Video.

38:42Sam, we need to use more reverb variations when we do our tracks here. These are extreme, man. To have totally dry drums and then one haunting voice.

39:13It's very rare that you go that much. I think it's so cool. Yeah, it's usually like 20% to 80%, you know.

39:23Nice, that's right even later. No, still 55 seconds. He's right in that 50 second mark. I thought it was more than a minute. No, that's when Tom York joins the party, about a minute in. No matter how it ends No matter how it stops Huh. That little rattle percussion, it's almost like the classical percussion.

39:56What is that called? How's the music video for this? What was this past your music video days?

40:30This is past my music video days. Yeah, I'm sure it's awesome. You didn't watch your MTV anymore then? No, I actually, like I said, man, I was 30. I was married and getting ready to have kids during this time. And I was on the road a lot too at this time. So I actually kind of like let go of my fandom for a lot of things during that. You know how it goes. It's like, You've got a good fan, aren't you? I'm back now. Really? I didn't notice that. Kids are teenagers now, so I'm totally back. They kind of pulled you back too a little bit. They did. Actually, my daughter last summer

41:00gave a PowerPoint presentation for the family and some of our friends on every Radiohead album ranked. And it took everything in my being not to sob through all of it. Of course. Because she put Kid A number one.

41:16I'm surprised you couldn't even get that out. And without me influencing her. Like, I had no idea that she was going to do that or she was that even into this band. And I was like, I love you so much. So we're the same person. Rewriting your will as she was there. She gets everything. That one gets everything. That's awesome. The next track,

Listening to Jigsaw Falling into Place

41:33Jigsaw Falling in the Place,

Listening to Jigsaw Falling into Place

41:34is an incredible track. This was the lead single off this album. Came to number 30 in the UK charts. Didn't get anywhere in the U.S. Interesting.

41:47Charts were fickle by this time. Charts meant Charts are almost fickle. Next to zero by... We're at 23 right now. Let's see how long it takes.

42:07It is such a vibe, though, to come in. I mean, to have that as part of their style. Just as you take my hand, just as you write my number down, just as the drink's arrive, just as they play your favorite song.

42:46As your breath disappears, you'll no longer wind up like a spring. Before you've heard too much, come back and focus again. The walls have been in shape. They got a chair ship cackering, all blurring into one. This place is on a mission before the night out. If all the animal noises close to get cameras...

43:17Who's that singing? That's Tom York. That is Tom York? Dude, his range is ridiculous. That is crazy, man.

43:24He so often sings in his falsetto... Yeah. ...that when he goes down that low, it's like, what the fuck? Man, is this... This is not a rock band. Yeah. Art rock is what we landed on before. Art rock, did we say that? Okay. Yeah, but I don't know, man. There should be... I mean, I know you hate genres, famously. Famously. But it is... I guess art rock makes... I mean, that always has a certain level of pretension whenever you say art something. I think there's a level of...

43:55No one would ever say art classical or art jazz. No. Because they're already hoity-toity. But they would call jazz and classical art music. I know. I don't like that. Yeah, yeah. Because it's like art music and folk music. Totally. You know? And it's just not... Ignorant folk music and... High class. We know what we're doing. We've got a take on things. But I think in this, yeah, there's like an implication of thoughtful rock and... Rock und roll.

Listening to Videotape and Final Thoughts

44:22All right.

Listening to Videotape and Final Thoughts

44:23The last track on the album is The Closer and Tom York called this Absolute Agony. He built it on a fast four-to-the-floor pulse and came back to find Johnny and Godrich stripped it bare bones, reduced him to tears. Come on, guys. Hospital Studio, December 2006, the first moment he'd felt that they got something. What's Hospital Studio? I don't know. Oh.

44:44Was he that mad at them? He put them in the hospital? Pour the floor, IMFs.

44:51This is such a beautiful closing track on the album. This is a better piano song. Just gorgeous, man. When I'm at the pearly gates This'll be on my videotape And if a star fleas is just beneath

45:22And is reaching out to grab me This is one for the good days And I have it all here And red, blue, green And red, blue, green His, Tom York's intonation Is so great But there's times when he's not

45:54And I mean, it's got to be intentional Because you can tell he can control And so it gives it such a Kind of unaffected humanity, I think, to it Yeah You know, it's not Certain notes are just stunningly in tune But others are not And I think it's It's a great Thing to I mean, obviously We're in this Days of auto-tune But they had it at that time, too So they I mean, this was The way it was On purpose, right? I got some flack last time When we did Today When I said that

46:25Do you read the comments still, man? No I don't read any of those My wife told me No, but I mentioned that I don't think Tom York's Like a great singer Like in the way that Luther Vandross Is a great singer Right Has all this Control Flawless But he does have a lot of control But he does have control Like he's a He's not a great singer But he's a great vocalist Yes He is an incredible artist And he does actually have great control I think What is so special about his voice Is the vulnerability to it Yes Is the fact that it's not this perfectly No, no, no Manicured vocal performance

46:57He has a lot of control over it Very unique It's not like It's like a beautiful It's not a Lamborghini or a Ferrari But it's something else You know It's a beautiful vehicle That's unique Yeah And that the driver Because I mean Vocalists They're not like pianos Where we're like Oh, I got a great new instrument They're like This is my instrument Yeah And so how do you get dialed in On your own instrument I think he's His level of dialed in Is pretty much 100 Yeah, I mean And also He just has a really cool instrument You mentioned the range Yeah You know When he's low

47:27In that song before He pulls that gear out Sometimes And then he can He can sing in this sort of like Whale Yeah Falsetto And I mean Like mixed voice Oh, I see what you do They whale Weird fishes Whales eat weird fishes So that There it is If you stay in the end That's what you get Okay, so Reaction in Rainbows Post Kid A Wait, this was in Rainbow? I thought we were listening to Kid A I got confused again Why, see, you can't No, this is OK Computer, right? Doggone it You know what my reaction is? That piano I mean, Robert Glass

47:58Or was that Brad Melloff? Who was playing piano on that last track? Dang, Navig No, I would say I think I think Man, I love I love what I just heard And I want to dig in deeper to this Like, I think I will go back And listen to this A little bit more than Kid A, actually You're like a millennial Well, I feel like I mean, Kid A is great This is a much more even Some people might say Much smaller range album Yeah But I love Like, to me, this felt like Look, we're And we appreciate you guys listening

48:29And listening to my Ignorant dribble about this Man, I love these episodes I love hearing your takes On these things Like, from a very fresh perspective You know what I mean? Like, it's great No, but I think that We're not giving it Like, I'm thinking Even as I go The fact that it's I want to go back And just sit and listen to this And vibe out on this Yeah You know, this felt like And I'm not doing it total justice Because I feel like Until you do that You don't really know But it's kind of like When you sample something You're like, oh It's like previews to a movie You don't really know And sometimes

48:59Like, especially for comedies You're like, oh That's so You're laughing And then you're like Wait, are those the only good jokes That are going to be in the movie? Did I just see it? Thanks a lot, Netflix Yeah, yeah, yeah But with this I feel like Like, I want to get the transitions And we don't have time Or the legal license To do that here No, we do not But, I mean This makes me want to feel The transitions from this To feel the balance And the journey Which I definitely got some And as you guiding through It was great And so I think That from beginning to end I would prefer this But I'm a little nervous

49:29As I say this Don't hit me Don't hit me, daddy You're with the majority You're with the majority People prefer this To any other radio Oh, I'm a sellout Yeah, you're a sellout You're very commercial What does Brad Meldau think? What's his favorite? Brad loves OKC You just know he does What about Robert Glasper? Glasper loves Kid A I'm just telling you There was a video That was going around The internet recently I don't know if you saw Of Robert Gosper Playing everything In his right place It was fed to me Everywhere I went He's teary-eyed Yeah, in Paris And it was so powerful Hot during the heat wave It's a great version What about Adam Maness? What does Adam Maness say?

50:00Can you give me a stack ranking Of those three at least? I know you mentioned The two after this You didn't prefer it Well, let's talk about the run So for me There's a Radiohead run They have Pablo Honey And they have The Benz Which are their first two albums And actually Their biggest hit, Creep Is from that first album But to me They hit their artistic stride With OK Computer Did we do the joke? Who was the comedian The Creep joke? Did we cover that last time? Patrice O'Neill Yeah, white people love Creep That Anna Anna Yeah, you gotta check it out It's great No, but from

50:30So 1997 is OK Computer Yeah And then And then from there They're on a run Until this album And like I said I like The King of Limbs I like Moon Shaped Pool But I think That run between That's really just OK Computer Kid A Amnesiac Hail to the Thief And In Rainbows And then I'm also gonna throw in That's pretty So you're talking about 10 years 10 years Five albums Yeah And I'm gonna throw in Tom York's solo album The Eraser Which I'll play a little bit of it here Wasn't that late? Wasn't that after this? That was 2006 The Eraser Oh, it was right before this

51:01Right before this Oh, wow I gotta check that So yeah, actually That's what's my Up next That was a great I mean, you talk about When we talk about Other classic periods Oh, yeah That's such a great output Even though like I know that there's some tortured Like they were sitting in the Ramshackle You know English manor house You know For months on end and stuff But I mean that If you look at the Yeah Well, I mean Think about it This is their This is the end of that period Yeah The last album of that period And this is their most popular album Afterwards Which is like You know We've covered Steely Dan

51:32Right Gaucho Yeah Which was their sort of Last album until You know 20 years later Yeah And that was the end of A sort of 10 year run From them We've covered people like Miles Davis Right Who's like You know We've talked about Miles And he's got this Electric era And the 80s era But that From 57 To like 67 Right When you think of Miles Prestige to Columbia You're thinking of that Like a lot of people Are thinking of that And I know people love Bitches Brewing on the corner I love that stuff too But I think most Culturally we think of Miles In that late 50s We should do like a Stack ranking

52:03Or S tier list Of classic Classic runs Yeah Stevie Stevie Miles Radiohead I mean think about Coltrane Herbie Herbie's got a couple Stevie's run Right Music of my mind You could Or maybe the album Previous to that What was that one called Fulfilling this first finale No That was after Music of my mind Music of my mind Was the first one Of what's considered The classic The Tonto period It was the one It was his like Last blue note album Before the Tonto period Put it in the comments We talked about it And now I'm spacing But music of my mind Up until when Like

52:34As long as the key of life 76 Yeah Six years You don't think Hotter in July And Secret Life of Plants That's definitely not the You're talking about The classic period I'm talking about a run Because he was still On a run After the classic period Yeah but there was such There was like There was a break there You know what I mean And I think that You know Maybe we're Maybe ready You know Tom York and the boys Would look at this Different and be like No this is not How we were thinking about it But sometimes Other people are better Objectively Like you kind of Had this demarcation point From 97 to 07 Based upon the albums And not only your love for them

53:04But kind of like The lineage of it Yeah And so they are Somewhat arbitrary But once you've had Some space to look back Artistically And what the flow Because there's other stuff Like in terms of You know Sometimes the instrumentation And what I mean because Stevie Had that whole period Where he was playing everything Yeah And he did that some And then like Everything changed Yeah Stevie stayed the same Stevie stayed the same But everything changed And I think also There's a cultural thing Where you kind of like Age out Yeah A little bit Of I mean They're still in their 30s here They're you know what I mean And isn't there a thing Like we could say this For anybody

53:35But I mean we're talking About Radiohead here too Where you have The presence of mind You know You're not only Great musicians But you're great You made a great Important rock band One of the most important Of all time You know what I mean The fact that you could Even be like This is our revolver I don't even know these guys I don't know how cocky they are But I mean I don't think they're too cocky To say that You know Yeah Or they're cocky enough To say that But the idea I think they're appropriately cocky Yeah Right If I had to guess Right But the fact that I mean I'm sure At this same point They could look back I mean a couple years

54:05After this record And be like Damn We've made some stuff You made some shit We didn't just This isn't some one hit wonders It wasn't even a lot of hits It would be But it was a lot of Important albums right How much fun would it be To do a classic run episode We should do that Because think about the Beatles Beethoven Beatles 63, 64 Yeah 70 Yep That's it And then they're not even A band after that Can't say their name We can't play their music Can't play their music You think about John Coltrane Yeah You know He goes on this tear For like five, six years Where he's just like growing

54:36And we're all You know Watching this evolution happen The meters The meters That's a run Prince We've already talked about Prince's run From the late 70s To the late 80s You know Well drop in the comments If you want us to go running Hey This is so cool man Should we do some categories real quick Oh dang Desert Island What's your apex moment Slash desert island I got weird fishes You go first Weird fishes for my Desert island track I like weird fishes I mean I'm gonna be Really following your lead on this I like that Reckoner Reckoner That was killer That was I mean even if I hadn't seen this

55:06Loose Described as growing out of a Loose group jam That was immediately the feel So good And the vibe And that was a nice little Pattern interrupter Not so much like with the sound Or the vibe But with the approach Yeah You know Quibble bits I have Was too expensive Was it expensive No it was Pay what you want Oh I thought you meant The production of that That was a joke It was a joke That was good I love jokes that have to be explained Thank you Acuchemals I wouldn't know Because I won't see it It was an iPod V2 Okay Is this their best album

55:38No I'm gonna say For me Kid A Really Yeah Okay There you go Okay this will be a good one Snubometer Five Man You used to hate the five And now You're dialed in on the five I'm dialed in I'm locked in on five I feel like Radiohead Is always Wait 10 is more snobby Right Yeah I feel like Anything Radiohead Has to at least be a six I kind of agree I'm gonna go seven But it sold three million copies Dude Robert Glasper Brad Meldau That's all And Adam Maness That's the trifecta Of snobbiness And Ethan Iverson I'm sure

56:09And Alan Iverson Happens to love Radiohead So that's Fun fact Hey AI Come on the show Up next I have that That 2006 Tom York solo album That I mentioned Called The Eraser This is Adams for Peace This is such a cool project If you haven't checked out The Eraser The whole thing is beautiful This is 2006 Yeah How's it gonna be up next It occurred before Well You're going back in time Because we're in the future now So we have all of this But that's kind of What I was saying Like when you have Forget about 20 years later

56:40Even a couple years later You can look back And be like Oh You started explaining In a way That they didn't even know At the time You know It's like Oh this makes sense That that led to that No more going to the dark side With your flying saucer eyes The other guys in Radiohead Should have sued Tom York For not calling us a radio I can already tell Where that's going Well you can hear What Tom is into on that one What do you think I'm next Peter What do you put next to this Oh This might be controversial For reasons I see what you're doing I love it I love it I love it 2007

57:11Kanye I'm not even gonna say his name Graduation Such a good album That's a great album Such a great album And that was the same year It's a Who? Kanye West It was a different He was a different person Than that time Man I wish I wish he was still that person So we could talk about Some of that music Because it was so amazing And I think I wasn't listening to him a lot But I remember That year Now I know Remember it's 2007 I can even place it It was like Yes Buddy Can we please do some more From this era Can we do some Dilla beats Can we do some Let's do some Kanye

57:42How about let's go all the way in there I just love this era The 2000s were so fun That was so good The arts The arts The arts We ought to do that We'll hear it The arts The arts The arts We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that

58:12We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that We ought to do that