I bought the new Radiohead today: Hail to the Thief, Special Edition. I have no idea what the difference is from the “regular” edition, because the tracks seem to be the same; maybe it’s that strange poster folded up like a map?
Anyway, it’s like this: when I first heard “Creep”, I couldn’t get that guitar blast or Yorke’s plaintive wailing (excuse the cliche, but that’s what it is) out of my head for anything. I think I bought the album (Pablo Honey) the same day I first saw the video (or at least as soon as I could be taken to the record shop). “High & Dry” (on The Bends) was the same way, except replace blasting with a strong and mature, but not disengaged, casual feel. OK Computer I bought the day it came out before having heard a single track and fell in love with it on first listen (moderate volume on a good hifi in a very large room) and spent months teasing out the nuances (few albums really take advantage of B&O Form2 headphones’ absurd dynamic range).
Now the recent albums. I immediately liked 1/3 of Kid A, especially “National Anthem”. 1/3 I’ve since grown to like. The remaining third is just unlistenable–incoherent, whiny, etc.–there’s no debating it. It took me a month to even listen to Amnesiac; sure, I heard it a few times, but nothing gelled. As things now stand, I enjoy about half of that album, even though it still runs all together in my mind. That said, the wall-of-sound bits of it are painfully catchy (e.g., “Packt…”), especially on a cheap boombox.
And now I’ve got Thief. Aside from the suspect title, I had high hopes for it. As with Amnesiac, there have been rumors of a return to things like conventional song structure, instrumentation, production, etc. These were again, proven wrong. I really can’t say anything now about the album. Ask in a month or two and I might like a couple songs by then, even though I probably won’t be able to tell you which ones.
Isn’t avant garde supposed to be about creatively encountering limits instead of just pushing past them? OK Computer was new and interesting when it came out, and it’s songwriting and production still hold up. These newer albums, though, don’t seem to have the same sticking power because Radiohead has, unfortunately, opted out of challenging itself musically and taken the low road of endless knob-twiddling. I’ve nothing against knob-twiddling at all, but Yorke et al. aren’t anywhere near the limits of the genre, even while it holds back their real proficiencies.
In 1994 Radiohead were virtuosos. What are they now?
And where’d I put that Asphodel compilation, anyway?