Radiohead's seventh studio album, In Rainbows, was released on the 10th of October, 2007. At that time, I was a sophomore at my high school in Escondido, California - and I was under the impression that I understood a lot about music.
At the time, my musical preferences were best personified by a schizophrenic homeless man, mainly because they shared a lot of acoustic similarity. I really enjoyed the type of music that involved discontinuous, incoherent yelling because at the time, that made up the majority of my mental state. Calling into question notions of power and control seem almost homologous to the distilled form of being a teenager. Listening to bands which hold similar principles at heart, like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Rage Against the Machine, Iron Maiden and System of a Down, provided a reassuring confirmation to my rebellious internal state. It wasn't until the album In Rainbows released that I felt a change in my internal conception as a function of my external reassurance.
My uncle, Bo, told me about the album which was to be released. Because he was my cool uncle that rode bicycles and drank weird teas, I decided to give it a shot, and I downloaded "In Rainbows" as soon as it came out. Strangely, the band made the album available through their website, on a "pay as you'd like" basis. Being fifteen I entered $0.00 into the field, and proceeded (weirdly) to downloading the album. From there, I simply installed it on my 4Gigabyte iPod touch, first generation, and took it with me to school.
It wasn't until my Spanish class that something clicked.
You see, my high school was a small charter-type school, and I was on the "independent-study" track. As such, I was required to walk to the community college nearby to complete a number of courses, because my high school simply did not have space for me to take them there. I was walking to my Spanish class when I started playing the album, I specifically remember the Taco Bell I was looking at as I pressed play. I had selected a track in the middle of the album, like an inpatient bafoon, hoping to cut right into the meaty part. The track is called "Nude" and I probably picked it because I was fifteen.
The mixing and composition of the first thirty seconds was enough to fully convince me that up to this point in my life, nothing more beautiful had touched my cochlea. As the track played, I fell ever-more deeply entranced by Thom's whimsical falsetto, only to be sharply removed from the spell thanks to my Spanish teacher's astounding mole on her left cheek.
I honestly view those brief initial moments of hearing In Rainbows for the first time as the single most defining point in my understanding and love of music. Nothing since has felt as impactful, so mind-shatteringly brilliant that it left me questioning my own conception. That song, to me, was very important - not only in my mental interpretation of music what good music is, but on the capacity as to what music is capable of.