8 Mind-Blowing Details In Radiohead Albums You Never Noticed

8. The Golden Ratio Manifests In Reckoner

There's a number that's used in architectural design, called the "golden ratio". As you can imagine from the name, employing the golden ratio in your work will proportion it to optimum beauty; artists famously used the formula to make their work as aesthetically pleasing as they possibly could. This number works out to about 1.6180339887, or about 61.8%. If you listen to 'In Rainbows', a record that's 42 minutes and 43 seconds long, and work out when you're 61.8% through the record, you can estimate it to be about 2:49 in track 7, 'Reckoner'. At this point in the song, the vocals change key, Thom Yorke's voice ascends, and the backing vocals start whispering the album title. It's a theory that's been refuted in the past, but when asked in the record had a centre, Yorke referred to that moment in 'Reckoner'; "Everything's leading to that point then going away from that point," he said. Whether it's intentional or not, it's a fantastic little detail of a masterpiece.