In Rainbows – From the Basement – Radiohead

My previous post was about a new cd release from Coldplay, one of my favorite bands. At this particular point in my life, I think it is safe to say that my top dawg band of all time is Radiohead. Let me digress back to when I first became aware of this new and upcoming band called Radiohead.

Way back in 1993 I had moved up to a college town where people called University of North Texas, “school”. I guess people learned stuff there, but I learned everything a person shouldn’t have learned in college. Anyhow, I’ll save this for another post. During my time of blowing financial aid, I was really getting into local music from Denton, TX. Bands like The Nixons, The Toadies, Radish (Ben Kweller’s old band) to name a few, then other national acts coming through Dallas like Our Lady Peace, Nirvana and Pearl Jam kept my music wiener on high alert. Then one day I heard a song called “Creep” from a band I had not heard of called Radiohead. The song kind of tailed on the grunge sound, but the singer had this harmony to his voice unlike the others. Ripcord was another favorite on their release called ‘Pablo Honey’.

Then the album that thrust them into the great band status hit in 1995, “The Bends”. Wow, where do I start with this one? How about I just list all the tracks:

1. Planet Telex
2. The Bends
3. High and Dry
4. Fake Plastic Trees
5. Bones
6. Nice Dream
7. Just
8. My Iron Lung
9. Bulletproof… I Wish I Was
10. Black Star
11. Sulk
12. Street Spirit (fade out)

All of these songs have their greatness.  But most importantly, this album started the change in Radioheads direction of music.  While other bands were headed in a similar path, Radiohead became experimental and went off into a world of their own with the releases of “OK Computer”, “KID A”, “Amnesiac” and “Hail to the Thief”.   All of these were very far off the beaten path, but heading right down the path that is “Radiohead”.

Towards the end of 2007, Radiohead announced they were releasing their new album called “In Rainbows” to the public for a ‘you name the price’ type of thing.  Most people I know paid less than 5 cents for it.  I paid zero for it.  Who would have thought a year later I want to spend more money on Radiohead to make up for my free copy of ‘In Rainbows’.  I’ve gone to their concert and brought 11 great friends with probably the best seats I’ve ever had for a cool concert. I’ve paid crazy money for some weak ass t-shirts for sale at the show and I’ve also paid for new bonus tracks released to iTunes users. Either way, I’ve put pleny of money back in their pockets for such a superb album.

One of the newest Radiohead purchases is called ‘In Rainbows – From the Basement‘.  I downloaded it from iTunes tonight.  It features 10 video tracks of Radiohead performing the In Rainbows album From The Basement. It is just like being at the concert, except it’s just you and them.

The music on this album is some of the best Radiohead has ever put out and I’m just glad I gave them another try after the previous oddity albums. It’s been almost a year since I first downloaded the music and I still get very excited to hear the tracks again and again.

If you are good with iTunes protected files and want to check out In Rainbows From the Basement, then take a peak over here and download. No password will be given, so you can find the way to convert .mp4 to .avi on your own.