Hey, maybe while you’re out in the woods you guys could…you know…find a GUITAR!? MAYBE!?
I was taking my lunch break today, reading that abysmal article in the LA Weekly about Godspeed You! Black Emperor (really, Weekly? Post-Rock hasn’t been relevant in almost a decade and you still can’t seem to come up with a definition of it?), when I started getting a bunch of Tweets asking if I’d heard the new Radiohead album yet.
Uh…why should I care about a new Radiohead album? They lost me with Hail To The Thief, and that was almost 8 years ago. At this point in my life Radiohead are nothing more than one of those bands that helped bridge my teenage music ears to my adult music ears. When a band hasn’t recorded a compelling note in almost a decade, I could care less about their new album.
And since this blog is entirely devoted to me telling you what to do, here’s why you shouldn’t care about the new Radiohead album either!
The Top Ten Reasons You Should Ignore The New Radiohead Album
10. $1.43 Per Minute – Clearly they’ll release a non-limited edition of this record somewhere down the line, but an initial offering of $53 for the lossless digital audio plus a double-10″ record set that clocks in at a measly 37 minutes is a joke. You could pick up the new Master Musicians of Bukkake [MP3} record on Latitudes for about fifty cents per minute, and it will be way more innovative and cool than this glitchy, wussy crap. I thought their last album was supposed to usher in a new paradigm for music retail, where the fan pays what the fan wants to pay and the bands screw the system and everybody wins. Anyone care to make up an excuse for why this one costs fifty bucks?
09. They're British - Sorry, but you're all a bunch of poofs. The whole lot of you.
08. Programable Drums - If there's one surefire way to make your band sound like it has no balls, use a bunch of programmed drums instead of your human drummer. I haven't seen Radiohead live in a few years. Does Phil just sit there now and push a bunch of buttons, or do they force him to play ultra-mundane repetitive crap with no room for improvisation?
07. What Have They Done For You Lately - There's no attempt to connect with the audience on the last two, maybe three Radiohead albums. I've been lucky enough to see the band a half dozen times going back to 1998, and even I noticed in the early '00s that the band had started to distance themselves from their audience. When you're mumbling nonsense syllables over emotionless electronic elements, how the hell can a listener form a bond with what they're hearing? I mean, obviously it's possible because the band has millions of fans…but I don't hear any heart or soul in this music. I haven't heard anything since Amnesiac. It's just boring, and at this point the band pretty much sounds like a parody of itself.
06. Tim Hecker - Poor Tim Hecker -- a guy who actually creates brilliant electronic-based music -- put out a stunning record this week and now everyone is glomming onto this new Radiohead record. "Oooh, the textures!" the fanboy sheep bleat, while others declare "They're so abstract and yet so accessible!" Tim Hecker, meanwhile, has created something that captures the essence of digital instrumentation and the natural world. None of the new Radiohead songs can touch this [MP3].
05. It’s Friday – Sorry, but I have about a thousand better things to think about on a Friday than I do a new Radiohead record. Shouldn’t people be planning forty-eight hours of non-stop drinking as their work-week draws to a close? Or trying to figure out where to go to get laid? Who the hell cares about Radiohead, it’s Friday. You’ve got way better things to focus your attention on than some guy whose voice has sounded like the world’s most annoying bird call for the last ten years.
04. Wheeeeeere’s Johnny – Let’s pretend you were in a band. And in your band there was a brilliant guitarist who was widely considered one of the best of his generation. Why the fuck would you ever cut off his balls and refuse to let him play a killer guitar solo? Because that’s what’s happened to Johnny Greenwood for over a decade. God, how depressing his life must be. I wonder if he ever goes home and listens to the second guitar solo in “Just” and looks down at the castrated mess in his lap and weeps silently to himself. If Mark McGuire can rip solos on Emeralds records, and if Sam Goldberg [MP3] can incorporate guitars into his electronic records, why can’t Radiohead?
03. Because – You should already be inherently ignoring all new releases, especially those which are massively hyped by Internet and print media. When was the last time anybody of any importance cared about a major label band’s new release? People like Chuck Klosterman care about new Radiohead albums. The rest of us are smoking in the back of the classroom, waiting for the next AQ New Arrivals list to hit our inbox, or better yet taking the advice of the Ye Olde Swan Fungus Blog and discovering lost gems you never knew existed.
02. This Video – So…they got that girl from The Beach to pretend she’s in A Clockwork Orange? Why even bother putting out a music video like this? Wait a minute, what am I saying? Why bother putting out a music video, period!
01. Their Best Works – Are already behind him. Sorry, did I say “him?” I meant to say “them.” It’s just…this sounds like that stupid Thom Yorke solo album. Where the hell is the rest of the band? Remember when they wrote songs, like “Bones” and “Electioneering”? It’s been 15 years since The Bends. Now all they do is release pretentious, boring dreck. And since when is a band’s quality determined by the amount of progression they show over the course of their career? And if it’s so important to distinguish the progression of Radiohead’s sound between where they were in 1997 and where they are in 2011, why doesn’t anyone seem to care that this band has not progressed at all in the past five years? I don’t get it.
February 18th, 2011
Apart from the GY!BE reference, I fully agree with you. Post rock may not be still relevant but Godspeed will always be ( they are on a comeback tour you know ) ANYWAYS! Radiohead was the first band I fell in love with, the second and third albums were sublime! but ever since they have been lacking, and oh have they been lacking. The new album is nothing short of garbage! as for Tim Hecker THAT MAN IS A LEGEND. On a final note… Polly Jean Harvey proves that the older artists can still cut it.
February 18th, 2011
John,
I love GY!BE — I’m going to see them next week. Post-rock’s heyday was a decade ago, how could a journalist in 2011 still think it’s impossible to define the genre!? That was what I was trying to say with my remark. I haven’t heard PJ yet but am looking forward to it.
February 18th, 2011
Amen re Tim Hecker.
February 18th, 2011
If they lost you at “hail to the thief” then I’m assuming you didn’t put much time into listening to “in rainbows” which is just a damn shame. these albums might take a few listens before you like them at all but if you allow yourself the time to get something out of it…that something is incredible.
February 18th, 2011
Fuck off yank faggot
There’s three great tracks none of the obscure shite you listen to could ever write
There are a few boring tracks, granted. The PJ Harvey album is better. As is Wire’s new one.
February 19th, 2011
New album is great, but i guess it’s better to not listen to it and whine instead.
February 19th, 2011
I agree with you on the new Radiohead! Actually though I never much cared for them. Kinda used Porcupine Tree and Muse as my Radiohead…
I also agree about Master Musicians of Bukkake, Hecker, GYBE and Aquarius! It’s a circle jerk! Speaking of Circle, how about some love for Finland’s finest one of these days? They deserve it!
Anyway, nice post as usual.
February 20th, 2011
Walt: “He YANKS FAGS?! WHAT?!” (coughs)
February 20th, 2011
In Rainbows was their warmest and most guitar-based album since OK Computer. Seriously, give it a go. Fair comment about the new album (I disagree though), but I would have thought there was lots to love about In Rainbows if you’re the type of person that prefers their older stuff.
Seriously though, leave off the national stereotypes, it’s irksome. I’m sure you can keep up your contrarian, curmudgeonly facade without resorting to tired clichés.
February 20th, 2011
The national comment was aimed directly at a British reader of mine (the guy who commented “fuck off yank faggot” in response to this very post) who uses that same exact insult towards me on a creepily daily basis. It wasn’t directed at the whole country.
There were a couple good songs on In Rainbows but I couldn’t get fully into it. Like I said in the post, it’s pretty hard for me to ignore the fact that (especially in their live shows) the band has grown incredibly distant from their audience in the past ten years. The last couple albums have been increasingly cold, and I find less and less that I can connect to.
February 20th, 2011
Unless you only expect that guy to read your blog, then I think you should assume that exclaiming “British people are poofs” will offend some people. This is why we think before we say something.
Personally speaking, I don’t feel that coldness at all, such is the subjective nature of the topic at hand. I think that the ‘From The Basement’ recordings was the best capture of their performance ever. Their attitude towards their fans seems much the same as it always has and, like I say, I find the music on In Rainbows some of the most emotionally accessible, generous and open in their catalogue.
Watch this and tell me that that is not a great band making interesting, relevant and involving music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?fmt=22&annotation_id=annotation_261054&v=k8byXSML4bY&feature=iv
February 20th, 2011
A sampling of most recent youtube comments re video suggested above:
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I know,? I came too.
When it hits the bridge in Bodysnatchers at 11:40,? my heart just aches with pleasure :).
Is this what heaven’s? like?
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Lord. I am SO not a fan.
February 20th, 2011
Well this is the problem isn’t it; you immediately cared more about what other people thought about it than the music itself. This is what I find more and more with people who ‘hate’ Radiohead: What they really hate are the fans, or at least their perceptions of them. They don’t want to buy into a ‘type of person’ they look down on and that they think Radiohead represents so they hate the music. It seems so petty.
I totally get when people genuinely don’t like the band, they’re very much an acquired taste and much to eclectic to be truly widely loved. Definitely not for everybody. However it seems to me that many people’s problems are with their internal perception of what liking Radiohead ‘means’ socially speaking rather than from an objectively musical or emotional standpoint.
July 23rd, 2011
wow man way to be a whiner, if your radiohead fan your a radiohead fan. I love all their stuff pretty much, including this.