The Radiohead Model, Chapter 6: How Come I End Up Where I Started?

*MP3: Radiohead - “15 Step”
*MP3: Radiohead - “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”

By 2007, the Internet had become the music industry. Once dominant record conglomerates like EMI slunk grudgingly away from their thrones as a veritable peasant’s revolt of download services, illegal torrent sites, music bloggers, and savvier independent labels stood defiantly (well, passive aggressively) at the castle gate, demanding entrance and recognition. As other forms of art and media struggled against the aegis of information, music itself seemed to lose monetary value completely. No longer guaranteed pay for goods delivered, both record companies and artists were suddenly at the mercy of their art, their fates beholden to the whims of a fickle online community. Then, in the fall of that year, a famous English band no one had heard from in four years casually posted a short message on the same official site they had been running for 10 years. The music industry blacked out.

On October 1, 2007, what might have been any normal Monday in Oxfordshire, Jonny Greenwood casually took to the band blog Dead Air Space to announce that Radiohead had recorded a new album called In Rainbows, which would be available for download ten days later for a price to be named by the customer. It was a move that surprised everyone, but in truth, it was a long time coming. Many bands had already independently acquiesced to the idea of the Internet as an ally and not an enemy. Some had even begun intentionally leaking their albums to create buzz in advance of sales. But major record labels, willfully dubious to the obvious sea change, could only wring their hands in despair as sales plummeted and their system failed around them. It was only fitting that one of the most respected and best-selling bands in the world began the funeral dirge in HTML.

But Radiohead had almost played their own eulogy in Hail to the Thief, their last contracted LP with EMI. After touring completed for that album, the band entered its longest dormant period since the lead-up to Kid A. Suddenly the most sought-after free agent in the music business, the band seemed more content to settle into their family lives, making occasional independent appearances here and there. Jonny Greenwood took up residency with the BBC Concert Orchestra and dabbled in classical and film composition. Thom Yorke released his first not-solo record, The Eraser, in 2006, continuing his penchant for stripped-down, laptop-based electronic music. The album received acclaim, but Yorke didn’t tour, and many wondered the same question: where was the band?

In truth, Radiohead had never really stopped working on songs as Radiohead. They just couldn’t bring themselves to master and release any of them. They were in limbo, without obligation or time frame. Attaining a level of self-determination that many might covet, the band languished. In 2006, after initial recording sessions with another producer failed, the band scrapped production and took their new songs to the road. Radiohead had always been acutely aware of their cult fanbase, and road-testing new music seemed a logical way forward.

After touring, the band returned to the studio with Nigel Godrich, whose guiding hand had been sorely missed. It was Nigel who gave the band the structure, focus, and renewed vigor they needed to begin the rehearsing and recording process for In Rainbows. But with strict parameters came a loosening and a long lost freedom. The band recorded live takes in crumbling old mansions again, but there was less stress this time. Despite their immediate beauty, the songs of In Rainbows betray more than anything the sense of a band playing freely for the first time in years. Listening to “Bodysnatchers,” a live take, the raucous joy in the singing and playing is palpable. Yorke’s help of “hey” as a kick-in to the bridge is a clear sign of a band playing loudly in a room. “We felt like we were 16 again,” Yorke said of the sessions.

Over the course of a year, the band recorded new material. There would still be the problem, however, of releasing it. It was clear by body language that Radiohead wanted nothing to do with the conglomerate dinosaurs, and the band continually resisted renewal offers from EMI, instead reviewing independent labels. During their 2006 tour, in an interview on Chicago Public Radio’s Sound Opinions, Jim DeRagotis and Greg Kot seemed to plead with the band to be the first to buck the establishment and just release new material themselves. It was nice, hypothetical conversation, but at some point in the latter half of 2007, brainstorming commenced, meetings were taken, and the decision was handed down through the band’s tight-knit managerial machine: self-release, give the fans what they want for however much they think it’s worth, and find physical distribution later. Play the Internet at its own game.

On October 10, 2007, Radiohead became the first band in history to release an album exclusively to the Internet by means of an official leak. With no contractual stops or intermediaries, the band made a mint. They would later find physical distribution through TBD Records in the US and XL Recordings in the UK, though to this day they remain unsigned. In 2008, In Rainbows appeared again, this time emblazoned with a bright and colorful photographic scheme by Stanley Donwood, a stark departure from his previous oil-based works. “Radiohead, In Rainbows” the cover repeats over and over again, as if even Donwood and the band can’t believe that the album actually happened.

The band promoted the album with webcasts, as they had with Kid A seven years earlier. Their tour and travel itinerary were even green conscious. All of this was accomplished by the band, their long-time managers, and their friends. As usual, critics lavished praise on the album, but Radiohead seemed to have triumphed in more way than one. To be sure, the music itself is much more open, immediate, and outright gorgeous than anything the band has done. Yorke’s voice soars again, and the band relaxes easily into texture and nuance behind it. But always present in the music seems to be the business model itself, decrying greed and celebrating the sheer force of music. On October 10, Radiohead gave the world a day to experience that sheer force together. “No matter what happens now,” Thom Yorke sings on “Videotape,” “I won’t be afraid because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.”

And so Radiohead continues on. Many wonder whether they will continue the model they pioneered with In Rainbows, but whenever the band decides to release music, the world will listen in whatever format it takes. The name Radiohead itself has become a brand, a fact of which the band is very aware and have used to very great artistic and commercial effect.

Over the years, the men of Radiohead had proved smarter than just about anybody else in cultivating image and preserving integrity as a band. Certainly, the warmer hues of In Rainbows have melted some of the more icy facsimiles of the band, but they remain as private as ever, tucked away in the tidy streets of Oxford, mucking about with instruments and new sounds much like they did on Friday afternoons when they first met almost 25 years ago. “You are my center when I spin away,” Yorke sings on In Rainbows, and he might as well be singing to the music itself—the thing which, beside business models, sustains the name Radiohead, and sets the world following after it.

Further Reading:
Chapter 5

(Erik Martz/Ian Anderson)