Radiohead – In Rainbows (Bonus Disc)

Back in October of 2007, Radiohead self-released In Rainbows, offering a ‘pay-what-you-want’ process for purchasing the album. You could put as little or as much as you wanted and still, you got the music no matter what. With that offer was a special little discbox (that isn't so little) that would include the album on CD and 2 vinyl LPs, artwork, a special edition case and a second, bonus disc. That bonus disc wasn’t released when the physical CD hit the shelves on New Year’s Day 2008 but it has some of the best songs the band wrote during the In Rainbows sessions.

Here is a personal video for “Last Flowers,” a piano-driven ballad. This version is probably almost identical to the album version, with the most important factors being highlighted: Thom Yorke’s voice and the piano melody. “And If I’m gonna talk, I just wanna talk” is simply sung, as if that’s something we rarely receive. I think it’s better than the other piano-led stuff they left on In Rainbows (“Nude,” “Videotap”) but maybe that’s just me:


And here is the version of “Down is the New Up,” that appears on the bonus disc. It’s creatively strong and a superb song on all accounts. “What is up…buttercup?” is what Yorke asks on this one, I wonder what is up myself sometimes. A lot of the album was about distorted realities and how some people’s perception is really, their reality. Here, a new agenda is brought up, as if to question what we desire and in the end, it’s Radiohead's trademark blur of sounds and mastery that wins out. – Bryan