Was In Rainbows the last great rock album? It's difficult, in 2026, not to think of rock as having decayed and decomposed, from supermarket tabloids on out, into nostalgia-land, rather than being a present-tense reality. My first listen, turns out, to In Rainbows, was an extremely memorable one. It was a car ride from Midway Airport in Chicago (after my first visit to Chicago, I avoided O'Hare) into the South Side of Chicago. Steve Halle's car. And we were going to visit the enfranchised, Eric Elshtain assembled bookstore on the U of Chicago campus, wacky poetry section and all. The time was January 2008. In Rainbows is a spectacular winter album. Memories are made of this. I had time to remember Chicago in the TAS interview that just came out, along with the sense that Chicago is an investment I don't regret. So it goes, that day, with In Rainbows hot off the press, there wasn't that much need yet to think that rock had kicked the bucket. It's Blitz held down the fort in 2009. But, from the Teens forward, pretty slim pickins for those raised on rock. Funny, that day, to note that Chicago's South Side mirrors Philadelphia's North Side. Where Temple University is. Memories are made of this.
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