Radiohead: In Rainbows [XL RECORDINGS]

Remember when In Rainbows was going to destroy the music industry as we know it? Originally released as a pay-what-you-can digital download in October of 2007, the album was a bit of an "up yours" to the music biz after the band fought its way out of its old recording contract with EMI but also something of a gift to longtime fans -- who, after all, could easily get their hands on the thing for free if they wanted to. 

Industry traditionalists fretted that the digital release would set a "dangerous" precedent and hurt new artists' potential to reach wide audiences, but the likes of the Arctic Monkeys and the Weeknd would soon achieve stardom by giving their own music away for free online so Radiohead looks pretty prescient in hindsight. And the band managed to have it both ways: when In Rainbows finally received a proper physical release, it became one of their most commercially successful recordings and remains a perennial best-seller to this day. "Nude" even became Radiohead's first Top-40 single in the U.S. since their first single "Creep" waaaaay back in 1992. Not bad considering the record was so difficult to make that the band briefly contemplated calling it quits for good before producer Nigel Godrich rode in and gave them, as frontman Thom Yorke put it at the time, "a walloping kick up the arse." In Rainbows also made it to Rolling Stone magazine's most recent list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

TRACKLISTING:

1. 15 Step
2. Bodysnatchers
3. Nude
4. Weird Fishes / Arpeggi
5. All I Need
6. Faust Arp
7. Reckoner
8. House of Cards
9. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
10. Videotape