Radiohead poll and Hail to the Thief

[john williams]

Best/Favorite Radiohead album?


I have just purchased the new Radiohead album "Hail to the Thief". Having listened to it about three times I am thoroughly impressed. Its a good blend of OK computer style guitar rock and the newer electronic strains of Kid A/Amnesiac.

I only really got into Radiohead after buying Kid A from a cheap bin at a department store and was totally blown away by it. Previously I had written them off for the terrible song Creep, but boy was I wrong. Something about "Everything in its Right Place" realy hooked into me when I first heard it on the radio.

I know there are a number of R/head fans around here, what do others think? I was a bit worried that Hail... was going to be a disappointment but I think I will revisit this record often and will only get better with each listen.

Pitchfork Review
Radiohead
Hail to the Thief
[Capitol; 2003]

Rating: 9.3

When I head out to my local record shop during my designated lunch break today-- a topic Radiohead's Thom Yorke would readily turn into a melodramatically fatalistic, Orwell-lite meditation on routine and alienation-- I'll mingle with teenagers and CEOs frantic to walk out with their own copy of Hail to the Thief. Because today, Radiohead are U2, Pink Floyd, and Queen-- they could have been bigger than The Beatles if the success of "Creep" hadn't agitated an Oxford-bred guilt complex. As Yorke put it in Meeting People Is Easy: "English people aren't impressed. There's this automatic assumption that any degree of success means that you've cheated. Or you're full of shit."

That's a cross Thom no longer has to bear, since whatever shit he was full of was kicked out of him-- in his hometown, no less-- one night in 2000. Like Johnny, the similarly bloodied main character from Mike Leigh's Naked, the assault appears to have Thom dealing with reality for possibly the first time. Protected from street-level human misery-- first by privilege, and then as a celebrity-- by a misguided belief in the world as something definite and easily changed, Yorke's pummeling rightly refocused an unparalleled modern songwriter on more immediate and emotionally resonant issues, stuffing him back in boots he was growing too big for.

Which is not to say I advocate violence, or that any end could justify its employment, but there are tertiary benefits when an artist's perspective is forcibly altered. Listen to George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 or-- less sarcastically, this time-- listen to Kid A, the most remarkably finessed redesign of an established band's sound since U2 recorded Achtung Baby. A reaction to overexposure, the undermining effects of commodification and the alienation of celebrity, Kid A hasn't aged a day (even while Amnesiac, a less inspired collection of underdeveloped tunes from the same sessions, has somewhat dulled its glimmer).

Kid A and Amnesiac were written and recorded before Thom was attacked, before he became a father, before the world became a lot smaller, when nothing really mattered. Hail to the Thief is almost four years removed from the reality Yorke last wrote about, and for that suspicious title and his recent exploits, it's thankfully less concerned about third world debt and paranoiac global conspiracy theories than I'd expected. Which is reassuring: Radiohead aren't turning into Midnight Oil-- though there's plenty of simplistic condemnation to be found here.

Hail to the Thief doesn't dig up Britpop skeletons from The Bends, and it's not OK Computer 2, as Yorke has called it in the press. It is, however, a holding pattern. Thom's excusatory remarks only underscore his chief failing: he can't grasp that pure, radical change isn't always the best option, whatever personal pride he as an artist takes from doing something "new" (and personally, I think Eno and his German collaborators from the late 70s have plenty of reasons to bristle at Kid A). There's nothing to apologize for here: Radiohead are a band, and after a fashion, bands are defined by their music. Much as U2's Zooropa still sounded like U2, anything Radiohead does from here on out will sound like Radiohead.

The triumphant "2+2=5" could only work as the set's opener, though the positively begging single "Go to Sleep" (due for release in June) is a close second. "2+2=5" is a more encompassing declaration of intent, defining the exploratory boundaries of Hail to the Thief as well as the professedly temporary return to "rocking out," something Ed O'Brien's been wanting to do ever since Kid A was born. Before any heady analysis (and there's plenty later in the record), Thom deals with his recent political distractions, pointing out the medieval ignorance of inaction in the face of overwhelming odds: "Are you such a dreamer/ To put the world to rights?/ I'll stay home forever/ Where two and two always makes up five." It's a bit grandiose, but he rightly concedes the possible arrogance of his bravado during the tune's neurotically charged finale: "Go and tell the king that the sky is falling in/ When it's not/ Maybe not."

"Sit Down. Stand Up.", on the other hand, is, in part, a return to old fears of impotence in the face of global forces at work, but Thom-- a new father-- has every reason to revisit the emotions that dominated one of the great societal laments in rock history, OK Computer. Juxtaposing a dread spawned by media oversaturation with a resigned, hands-over-ears focus on rain falling outside, the tune is devastating in its defeated isolation, the diary of a medicated droog in his chair on a Sunday afternoon, bubbling under the skin. Though it's compositionally identical to "2+2=5", the darker subject matter and more sinister execution-- in the form of far-off piano melodies, icy xylophone hits and maniacal vocal doubling-- reveal a demonic twin caught sideways in a cracked mirror.

Leading with such an excellent couplet, it's something of a disappointment to find that those reactionary barbs about stagnation Yorke is trying to defuse are critically valid, if irrelevant to fans. "Sail to the Moon" has the serenity to survive its lamentably tired title and refrain, but for its beauty, it's both lyrically and melodically reconstituted from better ballads past, like "Pyramid Song", "How to Disappear Completely", and "The Tourist". For fans, it's another wondrous lullaby from Radiohead; for critics, it's not only nothing new, it's topically laughable, as Thom cautions: "Maybe you'll be president/ But know right from wrong/ Or in the flood/ You'll build an Ark/ And sail us to the moon." An apocalyptic vision with all the emotional impact of AI.

"Backdrifts" is the first beacon signaling that Radiohead haven't lost touch with the radical experimentalism of Kid A and Amnesiac. It's a carefully attended piece that's easily overlooked on first listen, featuring a boxed-in, minimal collection of sine waves, gurgling vocal delay and distorted drum machine loops. Toward the middle, the band cuts loose with reverse-echoed piano and guitar swipes to approximate scratching vinyl. "Go to Sleep", a tightened retread of Amnesiac's Smiths tribute "Knives Out", drapes Old West reverb and twang over hugely mixed acoustic guitars. The tune carries through a surprisingly traditional half-time rock and roll chorus as Yorke rambles through placeholder lyrics, alternating tossed-off lines like, "We don't want the loonies taking over," with the constant response, "Over my dead body."

This leads into "Where I End and You Begin", which is the only real low point on the album, as aside from Yorke's vocals, it's a U2 song. Shuffling snare rolls usher along an admittedly succulent liquid bassline, but these are only drawn out from their terrestrial locus by a hard-panned pair of keyboard tracks, which, for their simplicity, save an otherwise underdeveloped track. The finale is more alluring with its raspy whispers and excellent melodic interplay, but it's mostly chaos, stacked high to mask the creative nudity underneath.

"We Suck Young Blood" returns to the piano mode the band has explored increasingly since Kid A, a sort of drunken New Orleans death dirge that embodies its vampiric title, creeping along at a measured, sickly pace that's punctuated only by languid, distanced handclaps. The approach pays off hugely here, as Yorke's gorgeous, metallic whinny embraces the stumbling progression with harmony after harmony, and moments of depressed, gentle wistfulness.

Along with "Backdrifts", "The Gloaming" exposes the band's potential future. Simple, looping glitches and obstinate videogame blurts dash all expectations, remaining resolutely compact, using huge reverb plates that allow Yorke to sing over his own voice. It's arguably academic in its basic composition, a theoretical dare, but it's one of few on this relatively sociable record, a kind of reward for the more studious members of their audience.

Which is where the advance single "There There" comes in, the unification of all of Radiohead's recently mixed aims (Jonny wants to play with Moogs, Ed and Colin want to rock out, Thom wants to change music forever). They meet up in this terrifyingly strange yet straightforward anthem, full of beautiful and more universal lyrics, soaring harmonies and a thundering crescendo they've wisely trimmed from its concert length (the band used to launch into "rock" mode after Thom's midpoint scream). Yorke has said he wept uncontrollably when he heard the first mixdown of "There There", and the unmastered MP3s of Hail to the Thief which leaked in March support this: unlike most other tracks, "There There" is essentially unchanged.

Possibly even more inspiring and enduring are "Myxomatosis" and "A Wolf at the Door", two of the last tracks on the album. The former is a buzzing prog redux of OK Computer's "Airbag" that shows how the simplicity Radiohead strive for can work wonders with tempo; drums fall all over the track until Thom winds up a layered, head-spinning (drunk?) verse that spills the rhythm on the floor. It's a dizzying stereo-panned stomp, and one of this record's finest moments.

As usual, Radiohead save a masterstroke for the closing slot; "A Wolf at the Door" continues in the Slavic New Orleans jazz vein, the same kind of Russo-Bayou parlor waltz as Amnesiac's "Life in a Glasshouse". As with most of Hail to the Thief, "A Wolf at the Door" is thorough, refined and consequently more potent-- almost slick-- in comparison with its drunken, ephemeral predecessor. It's here, at the end of the record, that Yorke most openly deals with the impact of his physical assault three years ago and the fears he holds with regard to role-playing traps in society and relationships (nicely summarized in a quick nod to Bryan Forbes' terrifying The Stepford Wives). Evil is out there-- he's suffered its wrath-- and like a terrified Chechnyan matriarch, he relies on tangible protection from the fuckers and future come to ransom his child.

For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously. Experimentation fueled the creativity that gave us Kid A and Amnesiac, but that's old hat to Radiohead, who are trying and largely succeeding in their efforts to shape pop music into as boundless and possible a medium as it should be. Without succumbing to dilettantism, they continue to absorb and refract simpler posits from the underground-- ideas that are usually satisfied to wallow in their mere novelty. The syncretic mania of Radiohead continues unabated, and though Hail to the Thief will likely be viewed as a slight placeholder once their promissory transformation is complete, most of us will long cherish the view from this bridge.

-Chris Ott, June 10th, 2003




I am a Kid A man myself but the new one might just take its place in time.

[Vince Kargatis]

I'll stick with the "classic" OK Computer, myself. Haven't gotten Hail to the Thief yet, will grab it from deepdiscountcd perhaps, or wait until it shows up at the always cheapest alldirect.com. I think Best Buy is loss-leading it at 10 bucks, but the nearest one is a bit of a hike... :)

[Salvador Dali Lama]

I never could get into radiohead. My pal said the new one is almost Fugazi-ish even so I might check it out.

[john williams]

I have only heard "In on the Kill Taker" and unless Fugazi have drastically changed its not a comparison I would make. However, I wouldn't mid hearing a bit more Fugazi. Any recommendations?

Red Medicine and The Argument are supposed to be a fine records.

[Dr Dave]

Wow. This stuff has totally passed me by. Maybe I'll pick up "OK Computer," see what the shouting's all about.

[Rob C]

Fugazi: 13 Songs is a classic!

[al j]

Like all their others, I'll be picking this up as well. Honestly though, I'm surprised that this came out so quickly. Radiohead's records normally rival Bruckheimer action films in post-production delays, only with more artist intervention.

I'm undecided on the title. It seems such an easy sell to the new generation of "Whatever you say, MTV, we are listening" zombies. It's such a tired subject and I can't imagine anything that Yorke might have to say that puts these matters in a new light. Then again, pop-society trends and facelessness in protest have given the group plenty to work with for their own (always?) interesting spins.

[bostontricky]

Originally posted by Dr Dave
Wow. This stuff has totally passed me by. Maybe I'll pick up "OK Computer," see what the shouting's all about.

Dave - I think this is the right path for new initiates. I'm not usually in on stuff like this either, but "OK Computer" was on so many lists (and in different places) at the end of 1997 that I couldn't overlook.

Little insert in the daily newspaper shows every last Radiohead album on sale at the yellow and red national chain for $9.99.

[Chris D]

Glad to see that Yorke and Co. have broken out the guitars again.
I loved "Kid A," but all the sound sculpting was wearing a little thin for me by the end of "Amnesiac."
I'm gonna look for vinyl on this one.
Doc, for your buck, "OK" would be the best route in, followed by the earlier "Pablo Honey" or "The Bends," I'd bet. They're the most rockish.

[bobetterblues]

Radiohead is my favorite band. I've had a preview copy of Hail To The Theif for about a month now. I love it. Radiohead is one of the few bands that I buy their record the day that it comes out. I bought their last three the day it came out, and I've never been disaapointed. KID A and Ok Computer are classics.....and they will stand the test of time.

By the way, the title of the album is NOT referring to George Bush. If you listen to the lyrics, you can also figure that out. Remember there are other places in the world besides the US.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

didnt like it.

too poppy, too heavy on un-interesting electronics.

[Other Steve]

I went with OK Computer too, with one caveat: I haven't heard The Bends. Still, I'm greatly enjoying the new one: "Sail to the Moon" might just be the most beautiful thing they've written since OK.

(And what a relief, after I couldn't even get though half of the new Metallica CD before sticking it in an envelope and mailing it to a friend who, I hope, will like it more than I did...)

[Other Steve]

"Where I End and You Begin" is an excellent rave-up of swarming guitars over a vintage U2 backbeat. ("I will eat you alive...")

[EDIT: Wow, I just went back and actually read that long-winded review in the first post. Silly me for not knowing that U2 was only to be used in a disparaging manner...]

[mke]

I'm not a big fan of those huge reviews, although they do seem popular in the online rock reviewing world.

I only have the last 3 albums (not counting HTTT), so I'm not voting. I do like Radiohead generally, though.

Phil "Jiveman" Grenadier covered Idiotheque on his latest album, I wonder what his favourite is...

[john williams]

I reckon Kid A is the best place to start, but that's where I started so its all I know. I think OK Computer is one song too long and Yorke's over earnest anthemic delivery on the earlier albums can grate after awhile. There is something about Kid A that really hooks me right from the first notes of the magnificent "Everything in its right place". OK Computer is a marvelous record and one of the best mainstream rock albums of the 90's. I had pretty much given up buying any rock albums at all a couple of years ago but Kid A was the album that broke the drought.

I won't attempt to guess Jiveman's motives for covering Idiotheque. However, its a wonderful choice and one of my favorite Radiohead's songs. Brad Meldhau covered Paranoid Android which was a bit too obvious IMHO.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

You know, karma police was a really really great song. I was just thinking about that earlier today.

[Troy D]

Count me in as another OK Computer fan. For me the ultimate test of a record is how it holds up to repeated listenings--and I never tire of this one. The songs are gorgeous, and really powerful as well.

[john williams]

Originally posted by Troy D
Count me in as another OK Computer fan. For me the ultimate test of a record is how it holds up to repeated listenings--and I never tire of this one. The songs are gorgeous, and really powerful as well.

I think OK Computer and Kid A both hold up very well on repeated listenings, for me anyway. Amnesiac and The Bends have worn less well though. However, the Pyramid Song and the last song on Amnesiac whatever its called, are terrific songs and firm favorites.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
too poppy, too heavy on un-interesting electronics.

and in the other (duped) thread:
too poppy, and the experimentation is about as garden variety as it gets. experimentation that still fits within the confines of aceptability on mainstream rock radio. Woopdie doo.

What do you mean by "too poppy"? That you don't much like pop, or that you feel they're pandering in some way?

I understand the judgment "uninteresting electronics", but not "garden variety/mainstream...experimentation". The latter strikes me as similar to The Wire editor Rob Young's ridiculous criticism of the Flaming Lips as indulging in what he seemed to think was "not real enough" (that's a paraphrase) experimental sounds. Are methods and sounds previously found only in experimental music not legitimate sources for making mainstream music (which Radiohead undoubtedly is)? Or are you somehow folding in commentary from other sources (or the band, I dunno, though I don't think so) depicting the music as "experimental"? Certainly the latter is only a reaction to the commentary, and not to the music.

Personally, I'm all for mainstream music folding in previously experimental sounds and methods - it's a palette-widening, which in my book is never inherently a bad thing, especially in popular music. Though I still prefer, say, Bjork's uses of such over Radiohead's, slightly (but ok, that's just my liking her over them anyway :).

Of course, I'm not questioning whether or not you like the record, but I don't follow all of your criticisms (which, admittedly, are briefly stated, so there's lots of room for misinterpretation). And heck, I haven't even heard the album yet, except for the second track, which I liked a lot.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

I mean it sounds very, very poppy. there may be experimentation, but its nothing that goes outside the bounds of what is acceptable to say, mtv or mainstream radio.

I really couldnt help but ask myself over and over if this is REALLY what these guys want to be doing with their music, or if they are tempering it for the mainstream.

but whatever, maybe the odd beep and boop coming from a drum machine IS their experimental vision.

thats fine if it is, but damned if have time for something like that. I was very unimpressed.

the other thing that kept finding itsway into my mind while listening, is, how experimental can something really be with a carbon copy of a drum beat that was played out by 1972?

but I hear those guys are big boosters of Buck 65, so I won't player hate TOO much.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally posted by JBW
I think OK Computer and Kid A both hold up very well on repeated listenings, for me anyway. Amnesiac and The Bends have worn less well though.

I recommend (somehow... - it's trivial with mp3) shuffling Kid A and Amnesiac together - heard together, they're very much of a kind and sound to me like the same session (which, iirc, they at least partly are), and work well for me considered as a unit. The latter suffers a bit compared independently, but I think that might be slightly unfair, too.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
[...] there may be experimentation, but its nothing that goes outside the bounds of what is acceptable to say, mtv or mainstream radio.

I really couldnt help but ask myself over and over if this is REALLY what these guys want to be doing with their music, or if they are tempering it for the mainstream.

but whatever, maybe the odd beep and boop coming from a drum machine IS their experimental vision.
[...]
the other thing that kept finding itsway into my mind while listening, is, how experimental can something really be with a carbon copy of a drum beat that was played out by 1972?

I tried to imply the question previously, but why are you concerned with the characterization of their music as "experimental"? And what does that characterization have to do with the music itself? I guess I'm something of an essentialist - of course context can matter subjectively, but more "objective" (i.e. aesthetically shared) considerations/criticisms require a lot more information - e.g. statements of intent of "experimentalism", etc, of which I'm unaware coming from the band's camp.

Your second statement above seems to amount to an accusation of pandering, which bothers me too when I think that's the case, though I don't hear it here. I just don't hear evidence that Radiohead isn't wanting to be a good-sounding mainstream band, for which they use available tools. Aren't they simply a good rock band walking the bridge that, say, people like Warp Records have been building for over a decade?

[Monte Smith]

I voted for PABLO HONEY, which I used to own and really like and now can't find amongst my jumble of pop CDs. I have OK COMPUTER too, and while I like sound, I kind of find it a little too boring to listen to the whole thing thru.

Anyone ever see the episode of Father Ted with the depressed, suicidal priest? Father Ted talks him off of a ledge and finally gets him to cheer up by introducing him to the "Theme from SHAFT." The music gets to him and turns his life all sunny again. How can a person be blue if they are listening to "Theme from SHAFT?" So he leaves Ted's place, whistling SHAFT, feeling great, and gets on the bus. The bus driver says, "Do you mind if I play some music?" The priest beams, "No, please! I love music." So the bus driver puts on Radiohead, immediately depressing the suicidal priest and turning everything in the world grey again.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

Vince, a lot of people have been praising this album for its experimental content, thats why I said what I had to say about that.

I agree that they're just trying to be a good sounding mainstream rock band. Which to me, amounts to pandering. And thats a strike against them, as it makes for less-involved music. Its not the motive behind the music that I'm passing judgement on, its the music itself.

Its not out and out offensive to my ears like a lot of pop music, but with such a wealth of great music in the world, I can't justify wasting my time on things like this.

As for just being a good rock band, I say nah. I can go see local groups in a similar vein pretty much any night of the week here. There a lot of them, and a lot of really great ones. I say similar vein, although its sans the commerical sheen and plus a little more creativity, and dare I say a little more emotion. Or maybe not a higher quantity of emotion, but a higher quality. Radiohead may be quite melancholy, but it strikes me as a very middle of the road melancholy.

what it all comes down to is different strokes for different folks, and this folk aint into these strokes.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
I mean it sounds very, very poppy. there may be experimentation, but its nothing that goes outside the bounds of what is acceptable to say, mtv or mainstream radio.

I haven't heard this, and you're probably right, but sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - musicians actively search for that union of avant garde and mainstream accessibility. Most of the time, it's just pseudo-experimental wanking, but sometimes it's an honest search and an honest expression.

[Other Steve]

Originally posted by JBW
I won't attempt to guess Jiveman's motives for covering Idiotheque. However, its a wonderful choice and one of my favorite Radiohead's songs. Brad Meldhau covered Paranoid Android which was a bit too obvious IMHO.

Brad's version of "Exit Music (for a Film)" is incredibly beautiful, IMHO.

[kc bob]

Anyone else reminded of the piper and madcapness of Syd Barrett when listening to A Wolf at the Door? Backdrifts a good tune too. These boys know something about pacing and looking at your shoes music.

Like the new release. Commercial progrock has never been better composed than RH's last 3 releases. Didn't get as much into their previous stuff but get into the first release. OK Computer was just OK and poppy. Kid A/Amnesiac were more cerebral and go together BTW as they were recorded in the same session. Like both mucho better... Pyramid Song is a near masterpiece.

[john williams]

Originally posted by kc bob
Anyone else reminded of the piper and madcapness of Syd Barrett when listening to A Wolf at the Door?

Like the new release. Commercial progrock has never been better composed than RH's last 3 releases. Didn't get as much into their previous stuff but get into the first release. OK Computer was just OK and poppy. Kid A/Amnesiac were more cerebral and go together BTW as they were recorded in the same session. Like both mucho better... Pyramid Song is a near masterpiece.

Never thought of Syd but it fits.

I will go further and say Pyramid Song is a masterpiece.

[Stuckinagroove]

Too poppy? That has to be one of the strangest criticisms I've heard of Radiohead. I'm more used to "too weird" or "depressing".
Salvador, do you really think songs like "the gloaming" or "backdrifts" or even earlier work like "Pyramid Song" fit neatly into mainstream radio?!? Which songs did you hear by them, I'm curious.

Yeah, they're *only* a rock band, but they're a damn good one! (imnsho)


"They were cheering and waving,
cheering and waving
Twitching and salivating like with myxomatosis"
-Radiohead

[Salvador Dali Lama]

too weird? dude, whoever is telling you this..... is well, probably an average radiohead record buyer.

that shit is SO not weird, no matter how hard they may try.

but whatever, like I said, I'm just not into it.