In Rainbows From the Basement

I am a big fan of Radiohead. To the point that I’ve actually seen them play live. To the extent that I’m actually in the crowd of Earls Court, where 2+2=5 was played live and added to the b-side album Com Lag. Okay that last one is due to sheer chance, but I really do love Radiohead. It speaks to me.

However, what I enjoy more is hearing different versions of various songs. Radiohead have been around for a stupidly long time, and so many of their songs have been redone, remixed and completely reworked. While other bands covering Radiohead can be somewhat difficult to find, there are some killer examples out there. One of my favouite covers is actually by Gnarls Barkley. And it works insanely well, since Reckoner is a hard song to cover.

What impresses me the most though is when Radiohead do their own sort of covers. And that is how I stumbled into In Rainbows From the Basement. This is a semi-live studio recording thingy that I don’t really know how to describe. It’s mostly the band playing in a basement. It’s not live, and definitely edited, but From the Basement is an hour of auditory bliss.

While In Rainbows From the Basement, as the name suggests, mostly has In Rainbows songs, it’s also got some great non-In Rainbows songs as well. Unlike King Of Limbs from the Basement, which is entirely songs from King of Limbs, the extra songs from In Rainbows From the Basement also covers some of my favourite songs. Myxomatosis, The Gloaming and Where I End and You Begin are all from Hail to the Thief; while Optimistic is all the way back from Kid A.

All the songs on In Rainbows From the Basement are mostly songs I love. Somewhat ironically, the only songs I don’t particularly like are right at the end, as a reprise. And me even saying that I don’t like them isn’t quite true, I just think they’re the weaker songs in this Youtube album. On the flip side, so many of these songs are what I think are the best versions of them. And, on the opposite side of the album, we start with Weird Fishes, an insanely beautiful song, played flawlessly. Honestly, they’re all good songs.

Probably my favourite part is the end of Optimistic, where the whole band goes full ham. It’s so powerful, I love it. The album version is also good, but it doesn’t have the strength that the semi-live version of Optimistic has. It’s so powerful. And then they slide straight into the aforementioned Reckoner. Again, another classic, just as beautiful as the studio version, and it’s pretty cool to see how much percussion actually goes into the song.

What I also enjoy is this live version of Bangers and Mash. The original song is very tame, but this version really goes for it. It’s even more impressive that Thom Yorke gets on his own set of mini drums in order to play the song. Singing and drumming at the same time is an insanely hard thing to do. Other parts of In Rainbows From the Basement is, well, almost all of it. Even the version of The Gloaming is a great rendition of the studio version, and they manage to pull it off live. And then we have the entirety of Myxomatosis, which has a brilliant riff all the way through.

The greatest thing about all of this though? In Rainbows From the Basement is right here on Youtube, free for pretty much everyone to see.