Spinning Plates, or Fake Plastic Trees

Pardon me, but I must write about Radiohead again. Those who know me well are aware that I am a Radiohead fan extraordinaire. But then again, most true Radiohead fans are rabid and obsessive and passionately devoted to the band and their music. Maybe I’m not extraordinary in my fanhood in any sense at all…

Randall asked who Radiohead is. My answer was to short.

Really, Radiohead is:

The Savior of 21st Century Rock.

In the war to redefine the music industry, the Delaware has been crossed. Radiohead’s decision to independently release its new album “In Rainbows” in downloadable format next week, for whatever price fans wish to pay, has pop’s movers and shakers alternately applauding and flinching in the wake of the attack. But nobody is surprised that this band was in the boat — after all, Radiohead has been rock’s great scruffy hope since transcending mope-rock with “OK Computer” 10 years ago.

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Radiohead itself is venerated, in part, because it is a rock band — five white guys who have taken on the legacy of the Beatles and Pink Floyd and, like good sons, paid it forward. Resistant to kitschy fame, they obviously believe in the depth and enduring value of their music. The band is centered around a knob-twiddling guitar innovator, Jonny Greenwood, and a politically inspired visionary, Thom Yorke, and with each release has gone farther from commerciality and deeper into its own gorgeous navel.

The relative scarcity of Radiohead material — fans have been waiting for “In Rainbows” for four years — intensifies its impact. In mainstream pop, singles and dance crazes rule, artists like Akon and T-Pain pop up on seemingly every new Top 40 confection, and people have their peak listening experiences while watching song-based montages on “CSI: Miami.” Radiohead offers an antidote for fans who want to preserve the idea of pop (and, more specifically, rock) as art. This band is a port in a storm.

Radiohead’s marriage of tradition and innovation is a beautiful paradox. It’s there in the music: “In Rainbows” will certainly be one of this year’s most challenging releases, rewarding those who give it the repeated listening its sequential release — first as a download, then in a box set, then in a conventional CD — compels. And it informs the release of “In Rainbows,” a brand-new way of doing things that revitalizes the aura rock had when it dominated the soundscape.

Where is Radiohead taking rock, then? Maybe into a place where it can fully flourish as a serious form of expression, constrained only by the market demands of a self-selected niche audience. In his new book, “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century,” music critic Alex Ross describes this transition as “a final ‘great fusion’ — intelligent pop artists and extroverted composers speaking more or less the same language.”

As artistically minded rock becomes more like modern classical music or jazz, its innovators will need new ways to survive the mass market. In that light, the release of “In Rainbows” signals not only revolution but preservation. Pop is evolving, but rock as we once knew it — rock that arrogantly and gracefully makes its own universe, the way “Sgt. Pepper” did, or “Born to Run” or “Nevermind” — doesn’t want to die. And to save it, Radiohead is here.