Radiohead album by album

I remember watching at least part of Scotch Mist live. It was pretty cool, of course it eventually got usurped by In The Basement in terms of quality but Scotch Mist was a nice gesture.

 

Anybody know about when Scotch Mist was filmed? Was the album out already?

 

In North America the physical album was released on 1 January 2008, the same day 'Scotch Mist' was broadcasted'

In Europe and most of the world the physical album was released in December 2007. I remember having the CD in my hands at least a week before Christmas. I think it was the first week of December or so

According to setlist.fm, they played the performance on 17 December 2007

 

This from the King of Gear site:

Recorded and broadcast from Radiohead’s “canned applause” studio during the last weeks of 2007, they show a band extremely excited about their latest work and happy to play it publicly for the first time after a solid year of recording and production. Many of the arrangements of the songs are still not fully worked out, as they would be by the recording of In Rainbows – From The Basement a few months later (for example, Jonny plays no guitar on the Scotch Mist version of Reckoner, and plays Rhodes piano during the outro of Weird Fishes).

 

The band clearly are having so much fun playing these songs together, that's the main thing that stood out to me when I saw this. They would play lots of shows on the actual tour where, just as with this broadcast, ALL TEN of the songs from the new album were in the setlist. That's astonishing, but crowd response certainly justified it...

 

It struck me when revisiting them how almost all the songs on the In Rainbows album have some idiomatic turn of phrase or wording in them that is, to my ear, distinctively British English — "how come I end up where I started", "has the light gone out for you?", "fill up with noise", "I guess I'm stuffed", "forget about your house of cards and I'll do mine". The specificity of dialect adds a bit of extra flavour to the whole thing, for me!

By contrast, I don't think the lyrics to the songs on Disk 2 are nearly as strong. "You're future's bleak / You're so last week"? Please...

 

What track is that from? That would have been lame even for the Pablo Honey era.

 

I like the lyrics to “last flowers” and “four minute warning” a lot. They’re not a lot to look at on paper but the melodies make them work great

 

“Go Slowly” is cool too that way for me.

 

"Down Is the New Up". Fantastic melody and groove, fun hooks — even a great string arrangement — but yeesh. "Topsy turvy time!"

 

On 14 January 2008 'Jigsaw Falling into Place' was released as the first 'In Rainbows' single

Was this ever happened before?. I mean, the first single of an album released months AFTER the album. The single is notorius for the inclusion of 3 live songs performed by Thom Yorke at the piano in November 2005 at BBC Maida Studios. It was his first 'From The Basement' performance.

From Wikipedia:

Time named "Jigsaw Falling into Place" the fifth best song of 2007.[8] Time writer Josh Tyrangiel praised the song's "tightness" and rising intensity, which he likened to a three-act play. He described the song as "a journey through flirtation, consummation and regret [that] gets about as close as you can to summing up a doomed relationship in four minutes".[9] Drowned in Sound described it as a "easy enough on the ear for indirect consumption ... but compositionally complex beneath a deceptively simple outer gloss for long-standing admirers to get sufficient kicks from".[2] Clash wrote: "It's good but like the much-hyped In Rainbows album, musically it's (relatively) unadventurous."[10] In 2016, Rolling Stone readers voted it one of the best Radiohead songs released since the 1990s.[3]

Along with the 2000 Radiohead song "Everything in Its Right Place", "Jigsaw Falling into Place" inspired contemporary classical composer Steve Reich's instrumental work Radio Rewrite.[11] Reich described "Jigsaw Falling into Place" as "a beautiful song" with "elaborate harmonic movement".[11]

7"

1. "Jigsaw Falling into Place" – 4:09
2. "Videotape" (Live from the Basement)[12] – 4:26

CD

1. "Jigsaw Falling into Place" – 4:09
2. "Down Is the New Up" (Live from the Basement)[12] – 5:07
3. "Last Flowers" (Live from the Basement)[12] – 4:11

 

From NME 2007

‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’

This song was known as ‘Open Pick’ previously, and was debuted on Radiohead’s 2006 tour. A Spanish-style guitar intro gives way to a driving acoustic guitar loop and ratatat drums, then an ascending electic riff. Thom Yorke chants, “Come on and let it out” repeatedly.

From Pitchfork 2007

This is almost certainly the track formerly known as "Open Pick", since one of that song's lyrics, you guessed it, "Jigsaws falling into place." A bit of an upbeat number, it comes off lyrically as a cautionary tale and, despite being written years later, a companion piece to "Nude", and despite seeming like a natural crowdpleaser was among the * In Rainbows * songs least-often performed live in 2006.

Key lyric: "As the magic disappears/ No longer wound up like a spring/ Before you've had too much/ Come back and focus again"

Here's the promo video, which is actually a live performance

 

And here, the 'Scotch Mist' version

 

I like “Jigsaw”, it has that driving rock sound, goes some interesting places, and has a picking pattern not unlike the one heard on “2+2=5”—though it may well be my least favorite track on the album.

The idea of a CD single was quaint in 2008, but I guess physical hadn’t quite died yet as a preferred music delivery option. I was still buying CD’s back then (along with records and some digital).

I remeber watching the “Jigsaw” video and my friends ragging on it because the cameras on the band members’ heads thing was a little awkward. It was frustrating because these friends that I had grown up with who loved Radiohead in the 90’s didn’t seem to have much use for anything they did post OKC or at best HTTT. Their loss.

 

I have the 7” single for this song, I never even knew they released a CD single with other songs. Ah well! Great track. I love the tension in it (I’ve probably typed that sentence 200 times in this thread already lol)

but I also love the ooooo ooooo backing vocals and the way it all starts in a lower register before amping up later

 

Here's the Thom Yorke From The Basement, November 2005 performance

 

This performance was my first 'Videotape' experience. I remember watching it over 2006 and 2007, because it was on constant rotation in cable TV

When I first saw 'In Rainbows' tracklist, even before hearing the album, I was so glad that 'Videotape' was included

 

I like Jigsaw fine, but I’d agree it’s my least favorite track on the record. I had no idea what they were releasing as singles by now, but on a record of basically seven potential singles, this seems an odd choice. There’s no hook, and really Thom’s vocal and the band’s tightness are the only reasons it works. I guess it’s a band showcase but as a song I don’t feel the need to seek it out. It’s a proper last minute rally for the record, but not sure this record needed that, exactly.

There’s plenty to like here, don’t get me wrong. Mostly little moments here and there. I’m just lukewarm on this song, always kind of have been.

 

i bought the discbox. same with others here, if it wasn't Radiohead, i probably would not have dished out that much cash. but damn it is a beauty. prat of me wouldnt have minded paying an extra 20 for disc2 on LP as well. still awaiting for that one to get a proper release. In Rainbows slowly became my second favorite record of theirs with Bends still being the first. more on the tracks later, as mentioned.

 

Agreed--though Thom's vocal has moments of "hookiness"--it does seem an odd choice for a single. If they wanted something upbeat, why not "Bodysnatchers"?

Of course the band were always going to do things their own weird way from here on out.

 

I've generally just been reading rather than contributing to this thread but yeah..... I came back to the band with In Rainbows after some time away. They found a new and better way to be themselves with this release. Yorke's vocals are not only soulful but as above, the melodies he creates by harmonising with himself are something wondrous, adding a whole other layer of Radioheadness to proceedings. This is probably my favourite record by them.

 

Well said! Hope you drop by to comment some more!

 

Here's a fun fact: Jigsaw is in DADF#BE tuning (Open D6), which I believe they took from Pavement. See, Jonny featured on a couple tracls on their last album, the somewhat languid and tepid Terror Twilight, which was produced by Nigel. Jonny played blues harmonica on Billie and Platform Blues. It is the latter that uses the D6 tuning. Moreover, Malkmus and the Jicks opened for Radiohead on their HTTT USA tour.



Of course, Radiohead are no strangers to alternate tunings, and really it's just changing 2 strings from your regular standard tuning. But I thought it was worth a mention.

 

That cool—a lot of Pavement kinda tests my patience, but that is a pretty good album. I love the track “Cream Of Gold” on it. I knew Nigel produced, but I guess I missed that Jonny guested on it.

And now I’ll have to try Open D6 tuning!

 

That is a fun fact. Although I disagree with your assessment of Terror Twilight which blew me away on release. I've always been under the spell of Pavement and their strange, jagged shaped songs.