12. RadioheadIn Rainbows
I find In Rainbows Radiohead’s most succinct record. Everything about it is inescapably ‘Radiohead’. Of all their albums from Pablo Honey through to King Of Limbs, In Rainbows is the one that’s most ‘Radiohead’, if you know what I mean. It’s so lean and yet manages to pack the same punch as their more elaborately arranged records. It’s hopeful and joyous and uplifting, and I can cry my fucking eyes out to this record, and it feels bloody wonderful. Normally I’m not a crier, but there was a time in my life I just needed to start crying a lot. I hit a point where I was having some kind of blockage, but when I heard ‘Let Down’ from OK Computer… I haven’t stopped crying since, haha! On this album I love ‘Nude’, and the whole idea that they had this song kicking around for ages that they didn’t know how to make it work, and then they finally did it. A bit like with The Beatles, when this is published I could well be wishing I’d chosen Kid A, or the back end of Hail To The Thief dovetailed onto the My Iron Lung EP. Basically I really like Radiohead. But I guess I’m not alone in that. I saw them in Coachella and they played this hard utilitarian set that was just mindblowing. I just lost my shit. I got hysterical. I was in floods of tears. And like I say, I’m not a crier, so I was like, "Christ this is a bit embarrassing!" And then I fell asleep for five minutes, because it got way too much for me. And then I woke up to ‘Myxomatosis’. It was really strange. I think Radiohead are my favourites above anybody. There’s some weird alchemy in what they do that I don’t think anyone can recreate or put their finger on. I love Radiohead more than I could possibly love anything other than my kids.
