The Radiohead Experiment

Rock N' Roll is my favorite music. Since I do not play any instrument, the important factors for me when I listen to a song are 1) enjoyment 2)the possible ways I can make this song a metaphor for my life*  and 3)Coherence. I find the technical aspect of music irrelevant since it's not something I seek to understand and I find there are ways to re-invent yourself without getting gradually more complicated. Nirvana for example, have released IN UTERO, because NEVERMIND made their genre mainstream, but when it was released it was everything but mainstream to begin with. So they found a sound that was coherent with their musical philosophy, while being as far as possible as you would expect.

These three criteria make it very difficult for me to enjoy Radiohead. I am unsure why some rock critics call them "the most important band since The Beatles". I've never seen footage of frenzied women at a Radiohead concert. I have stopped hearing their songs on the radio after OK COMPUTER. I fail to see the movement they created like The Beatles did when they turned to psychedelic drugs. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place. That's why I feel like I'm missing something here. That I'm not trying hard enough. So, in an attempt to overcome my cynicism and hop on the bandwagon, I force fed myself three Radiohead albums during a day, trying to understand what it is that I missed. The three albums are OK COMPUTER, KID A and HAIL TO THE THIEF, arguably the three most talked about albums of the band. Notice that I selected albums that came after THE BENDS, when they started getting weird (and "important"). I don't have anything against THE BENDS. I actually like the record.

OK Computer (1997)

All right, I recognize this. This is still rock. Fuck, some of those songs are worse than grinding nails on a chalkboard. LET DOWN or THE TOURIST for example. Ugh. This makes me realize that most of my beef with Radiohead is because of this album of depressed music for depressed people. Even then, it's way too docile for me to listen when I'm depressed. I have to admit some songs were a nice surprise. CLIMBING UP THE WALLS for example wasn't bad at all and NO SURPRISES is holding up well as a baseline for Radiohead's legacy. I can't like this album though, because there is a direct link in between OK COMPUTER and the existence of Coldplay. I would have probably said the same thing about The Smiths if I was born ten years earlier.

Kid A (2000)

This is...unsettling. Chuck Klosterman described Radiohead's music as pre-apocalyptic math rock and this is....pretty much that. A lot of electronic noise here. I am surprised that it leaves me that cold, because I like this kind of sonority. I am a Throbbing Gristle fan, so I should find a little place in my head for the sound of KID A, but I don't. It just leaves me cold. I can't discern any tangible feeling except maybe numbness. BUT, I have to give something to KID A. It has my favorite Radiohead song since JUST**. It's a song called OPTIMISTIC. It's a really good song and I have no idea what it's doing on this album. I understand the feelings on this song. I'm not surprised it received more airtime than any other songs on this album, including the single IDIOTEQUE.

Hail To The Thief (2003)

This is a little more intelligible than KID A, and yet it is a lot more chaotic. This is moved by a strong desire to experiment. The song structure is all jumbled up, not unlike free jazz. While there wasn't any songs I openly disliked, there was nothing I went crazy over either. Thom Yorke cited Thomas Pynchon as an influence for writing this album and it makes sense because I don't understand much about both. It's conceptually very heavy and I don't have the capacity to decode the subtext, to listen to the music, appreciate the shifts in tempo and rock out all at once. HAIL TO THE THIEF makes me feel simple minded, but it doesn't make me want to worship Thom Yorke or Johnny Greenwood. It's just slightly frustrating, which is the way I feel when I listen to intellectual prog rock.

Conclusion: I understand Radiohead a little better. What they have been doing over the six years where they produced those three albums*** is to constantly work at trumping expectations. Whenever one of their albums had tremendous success, they started working on something that was completely different without being the total opposite. It takes balls to do this, I have to admit. What bugs me is that I can't find any coherence, anything "Radiohead-like" in their sound from album to album. I can, from PABLO HONEY to OK COMPUTER, but after that, zilch. 

It's especially the case for HAIL TO THE THIEF. I understand better why I'm not crazy about them also. They operate in a paradigm I don't care about. They represent a generation of musicians with degrees in music that have this quasi-scientific dedication to exploring the craft. My tastes are too primitive or should I say not evolved enough? I grew up on radio, MTV and music that fit patterns. What I like in music are patterns. Musical patterns, artistic vision and evolution within a frame on thought. Radiohead aren't necessarily bad, they're just not doing that. This might also explain why most of the music I listen to is from before 2000. Has this experiment brought me anything? Yes. Next time Radiohead plays, I might not run out of the room.

* See Motörhead - Killed By Death, which fills out the three requirements. 

** Back when you know, they were a rock band.


*** I'm aware that I skipped AMNESIAC, thank you.