We’ve all done quite a bit (to say the least) of In Rainbows chattering. There are some truly inspired moments in that thread — thanks! On the whole, it seems like Radiohead brings out the best in some of us, so after Radiohead.tv went silent, it was great to nab another set of “new” Radio music to unpack. (Speaking of which, has anyone heard from Spuffmeister?) First things second: You’ve likely heard all the material on In Rainbows CD2 either live and in the flesh or via YouTube, but that’s not the point because each of the six proper tracks (there are two clipped and tucked incidentals) have received the requisite studio facelifts. As with In Rainbows the first, the fun is discovering how the band decided to arrange and transform the compositions in the studio, seeing where the songs are placed and how they interact. Really, it makes all the difference.
So let’s dive in: The brief, moaning whirlybird instrumentals “Mk 1″ and Mk 2″ are what comes in on “Videotape” around 1:25 (nice way of linking together the Rainbows, by the way). What you don’t get from that trivia, though, is how the outro pulses of “Mk 1″ drift into the grooving piano falsetto of “Down Is The New Up” (complete with shimmering atmospherics ice-quakes and classical swells) and how “Mk 2″ extends the ice of “Go Slowly,” creating a glacier from which “Last Flowers” tickled ivories can emerge.
We caught the cadential piano ballad “4 Minute Warning” at the Tower show in ’06 (along with “15 Step,” “House Of Cards,” “Nude,” and “Arpeggi,” but that’s a different end of the rainbow). We remember “Bangers & Mash” — it’s choppier and deeper, less reliant on the Lenny Kravitz-like riff in its studio form — and “Down Is The New Up” from MSG 2006 … and elsewhere. Like “Down Is The New Up” in basement session form:
On record, “Down” follows the clattering “Bangers & Mash,” which is CD2′s one hella freak out. It’s interesting to see how these pieces have changed over time. For instance, check “Up On The Ladder” from way back in 2002, working Thom into one of his manic dance fits.
The psyched-out recorded version makes more use of rattling electronics and multiple sonic threads with a clearer separation between the subdued but funk-ish guitar, cascading synths, and VU percussion. It’s a different song, basically … all the harder to spaz to. It seems like with CD2 the band thought about stretching a number of things more skyward: The aforementioned “Last Flowers” sounds more swooping and fake-plastic-y and “Go Slowly” is noticeably different, with its slower, ghostlier, more echoing arrangement. The studio treatment can often make it feel like hearing all these familiar pieces the first time … It’s so much more closed off, vacuum sealed, and alone, which seems essential to certain ‘Head-y ballads.
Other than “Bangers” CD2′s a largely downcast affair. You don’t get the pocket-change percussive crunch and lilting calypso of “15 Step,” “Bodysnatchers”‘s distorted rock and NYC 2002 riffs, the swing of “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” etc. But you do get the point: It’s more aired out and, with risk of sounding like a skipping record, balladeering. On a simpler level: More guitar on CD1, more piano on CD2. “Videotape” basically leads you into what to expect on CD2…
Maybe the most impressive thing about In Rainbows CD2 is how effortless it all seems. Hey Thom, did you guys even break a sweat on your way to making classics? We’d only ever heard “4 Minute Warning” in Philly, but when it popped up on part deux, it was like we knew every turn in the melody. How many bands can nail that sorta instant memory? Ah, Radiohead.
The tracklist:
01 Mk 1
02 Down Is The New Up
03 Go Slowly
04 Mk 2
05 Last Flowers
06 Up On The Ladder
07 Bangers & Mash
08 4 Minute Warning
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First. Now I’m gonna download the torrent like the broke asshole i am
I was particularly floored at around the 3:20 mark of ‘down is the new up’
If Grateful Dead fans are Dead Heads, then Radiohead fans must be Head Heads, right?
In all seriousness, there are scores of bands that release bonus/companion EPs (which is essentially what CD 2 really is), but without half the fanfare that Radiohead is sure to receive over In Rainbows CD2. Then again, most bands aren’t half as good as Radiohead.
I vote for the bonus disc that came with The Intelligence’s “Boredom and Terror”. But that either makes me a] extremely lame -or- b] extremely hip-as-fuck.
although very rough and short, i really enjoyed the ‘get nice’ ep that was included with spoon’s latest outing. haven’t checked this one out yet, but i’m excited about ‘flowers’.
Did anyone else read Pitchfork’s inane review of In Rainbows? It began with a bit about the rare experience we all got to share of downloading and listening to a piece of music at the same time. Wasn’t that special, assholes?
It’s bloody brilliant. All of it. I geeked out like a 35-year-old virgin at a midnight screening of Star Wars when I woke up yesterday and found out lovely Radiohead fans across the pond who got their discboxes had already uploaded CD2.
“Last Flowers” is one of the most beautiful songs in recent memory.
Does anyone find that the new ‘Up On the Ladder’ sounds like recent Xiu Xiu at first? wonderfully menacing
‘DOWN is the new UP’ – holy holy the tension in this song is amazing – THOM’S FALSETTO around 4 minutes in
also, BANGERS – Thom cracking up at Johnny’s ridiculous skronky guitar riff in ‘bangers n mash’ around 2:30 – fun as hell. what a fucking song!
geek out complete
just listened to it. does anyone else think ‘go slowly’ sounds like a b-side from ‘the wall’? maybe i’m hearing things.
ugh.
shut up.
this is unreadable. you are not as clever as you think you are.
if in rainbows is #1 of the year, this is #2.
i’m gonna go ahead and say it:
disc 2 is better than disc 1. or at least it has the comparative advantage; if it had as much content as disc one that was of the same quality of what’s on the disc 2, no question.
for me personally, this is one of those instances where radiohead could have recorded a truly inspired double album and all they had to do was record about two more songs. why did they hold back? it only gets to me, because while everything recorded for the “in rainbows” session is great, disk two is slightly better.
it’s one of those bizarre radiohead mysteries, like why “polyethylene” isn’t on “OK computer”…
disc 2 is better
Let’s be serious and not reactionary for a second. There are 8 songs here, and it’s 28 mins long. You don’t get anywhere near the emotional depths you experience here as on cd 1. All the songs are worth hearing and I’d consider a few of them to be really good, but it doesn’t flow like cd 1. It’s not meant to. That’s not to say the songs aren’t worth your time.
On another note I wish they would’ve turned up the little guitar freak out in the last seconds of 4 Minute Warning more. I got really excited when I heard it in the live version I have.
haha…leave it to Radiohead to make a ‘bonus disc’ which is 100x better than almost anything else put out in recent memory hahaha, ‘only’ 6 songs, but 6 amazing songs…six songs which are probably the best, most fun, flowing…amazing RH songs since the first 6 from OK Computer.
And its a BONUS DISC!! hahaha, HOW they chose to leave these off, and not just make it a giant 16 track Lp i have NO clue hahaha, but thank fuck they’re out there…A-MAZING!!!
In Rainbows CD1 + CD2= album of the year EASILY…sorry Neon “YAWN” Bible…(winks)
I finally listened to disc 2 today. To my ears it’s every bit as good as disc 1. It doesn’t sound like a collection of b-sides – it feels like an extension/expansion of disc 1.
are you guys kidding me? the album itself is great, but the songs on the bonus disc are clearly afterthoughts. go slowly and last flowers, while decent songs, sound unfinished, while bangers & mash is just horrible; it’s not even one of those songs that’s bad by radiohead’s standards and great by everyone else’s; it’s just a bad, bad song. 4 minute warning is really the only highlight.
I hate to start a controversy, but I couldn’t disagree more with the last comment posted by mang. “Bangers + Mash” is to me the highlight of Disc 2. A great song that pushes the envelope a tad more than some of the other songs do. I feel that Disc 1 is stronger, with more memorable songs. The guitar notes in “Go Slowly” sound like they were taken directly from the latter end of “There There”, and there really isn’t a “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” on Disc 2 that make you say ‘wow’ musically.
Bangers & Mash = Awesome. Anyone who knows how to play guitar must admit this fact. Anyone who doesn’t know how to guitar must immediately shut up.
yeah…Bangers n Mash is their most FUN song in AGES, period. Takes me back to the Bends/OKC b-sides era, sorta…Palo Alto y? fun shit. I just love every track…u mix these in w/In Rainbows n got quite the mutha fuckin Radiohead meal, i tell ya what.
Just found my discbox this morning, on my front door step. Disc 2 is obviously amazing, and pretty much each song is interchangeable with a song on In Rainbows. Bangers n Mash gets me everytime; Thom is pretty good on drums.
Disk2 is great, but not in the same way as disk1. 1 is well constructed start to finish and provides emotional highs and lows, which is where 2 fails. It’s a B-Side people. “Unfinished” is a good way to describe it. With more time in production, this could have been a fantastic double disk.
cool i was wondering if i was the only one who felt this way about disc 2.
based on one full listen each, i was largely bored by the new one (with the exception of “videotape” and maybe one other song).
conversely, i find disc 2 to be fucking great. where the main album falls into a safe, overly comfortable, mellow jazz-rock, almost homogenized version of what this great band is capable of, disc 2 has interest, variety, excitement, and experimentation all in good balance.
afterthoughts? no, just mostly coming from a different place. “experimental” in the sense of a band just having fun trying different things, but who still sound like a BAND, instead of geeky mad scientists. cause they’ve worked out their super-weird semi-solo experiments on albums that are now 6 and 7 years old, not to mention actual solo albums.
CD2 effortlessly achieves the balance that ‘thief’ tried so hard to strike, by mixing in the fun of all their best b-sides.
i think i would have been happier if the two discs were reversed. well, if i could steal “videotape” to put at the end of this one.
cd 2 is not nearly as good as cd1. 15 Step, Bodysnatchers, Faust Arp, Nude, Weird Fishes, Jigsaw, are absolutely top-rate, and rate more powerful sonically than Go Slowly, Up on the Ladder, and most of the others. Last Flowers is interesting lyrically and melodically(I’m eager to figure out what it means), but its music is pretty spare. Down is the New Up is fairly rich. Radiohead, at their best, introduce powerfully original soundscapes much more interesting to me than basic piano ballads.
I had disk one for a few months before I got disk 2 and I was completely satisfied. But WOW disk 2 is good. Bangers, Up on a Ladder, and Down is the New Up are among my favorite RH songs ever. Disk one has Wierd Fishes and some other great songs, but over all I gotta go disk 2… I’ve got the poison….uhhh
I had disk one for a few months before I got disk 2 and I was completely satisfied. But WOW disk 2 is good. Bangers, Up on a Ladder, and Down is the New Up are among my favorite RH songs ever. Disk one has Wierd Fishes and some other great songs, but over all I gotta go disk 2… I’ve got the poison….uhhh
Other than buying the box set. how do you guys get the CD2?
How can I get the Disc 2 of In Rainbows, download or physical copy?