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Great. Well, unfortunately not, as the music itself has been forgotten by the magazines and newspapers. For most of the journalists, the distinguishing feature of In Rainbows was not the quality of the music but the revolutionary way it was brought to the people - something which gave stacks of surprises. The whole thing was groundbreaking. Radiohead discarded their record company, allowed people to download the songs for how much they wanted to pay, and only announced a few days before the release date that they were working on a new project. Predictably, Radiohead's two fingers to the music industry ensured that style overshadowed substance. Let me try a parallel with another incredible work released in the last few months: the state-of-the-art book Only Revolutions from the avant-garde writer Mark Z. Danielewski. The buzz underlined the book as an 'object' but not a story. We all raved about the originality of the typography (which matched perfectly at the exact centre of the book), the dual way to read it, which allows you to follow the two protagonists' points of view, and the play on dates which spans more than 200 years of American history. But, somehow, we all forgot the real reason for Danielewski's incredible crafted piece. The excitement swallowed up the fusion love story between the two teenagers, the storm of words, neologisms and slang that punctuate the different obstacles they need to overcome. In a way In Rainbows would provide the perfect soundtrack for that book (a bit far-fetched, but why not?). The link seems clear when in "15 Steps", Yorke laments: 'How come I end up where I started / How come I end up where I went wrong' and when you hear him blaming himself on "House of Cards": 'I don't want to be your friend / I just want to be your lover / No matter it ends / No matter it ends'. Like 'Only Revolutions', 'In Rainbows' first and foremost tells a story regardless of what it's done to the music industry. So forget about the means, the ways, the tricks, the marketing…they're only there to serve the truth. In any case, the idea is already old news (Trent Reznor and Saul Williams have just released an album to download for free online — even Cliff Richard has jumped on the bandwagon!). So please, return to the essentials. The music. The new Radiohead album In the Rainbows is quite simply, a spectacular journey in your mind. That's all.
 
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