Radiohead--Hail to the Thief: A Reconsideration

(Cross-posted at Death-Media)

With new Radiohead songs popping up seemingly by the day, and a new EP maybe on the horizon, it seems an appropriate time to take a look back at the band's least-well-regarded album since Pablo Honey, namely 2003's Hail to the Thief.

What follows is a track by track, live-blog style listen through of the record. Hopefully at the end we will be closer to understanding where this record fits in with the general movements of pop in the last decade or so...


1. Appropriately subtitled, "The Lukewarm," one can understand how this opener would leave die-hards dry. It has an almost punk frenzy to it that was perhaps only present on much earlier songs like "Just" and the one misfire on OK Computer, "Electioneering." People had hoped for a return to the band's earlier, 'Alternative' sound, but I don't feel like this kind of ranting intensity was what anyone had in mind. Despite that, the guitar tone, particularly on the interlude that comes in around 2:30 is great, as is the Beatlesy bridge Thom sings over that figure that actually leads directly to the song's resolution.

2. "Sit Down Stand Up" opens with the sequenced beat familiar from Amnesiac and in some ways it has similarities with that album's version of "Morning Bell"... However, the driving, dark central section, along with Thom's lyrics about "the jaws of hell" lend the track an eerie, dark core absent from even the most despairing moments on Amnesiac. The more punishing beat that comes in around 3:10 combined with Thom's repetitive vocals confirm us in our belief in the song's dark progress--there is something bleak, hopeless about this frantic repetition.

3. "Sail to the Moon" Here we are back in 'Pyramid Song' territory, the slow melancholic piano ballad; here Thom's keys are augmented by some lovely guitar work, but despite the set-up and dynamic integration of the band as the song evolves, we are still hovering in a universe of irresolution. The tension continues to mount.

4. "Backdrifts" begins with samples almost reminiscent of the noisy "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" from Amnesiac, but Thom's hooky vocals make it clear this track is moving more in the direction of dub music, in an extremely oblique, British way prefiguring some of Animal Collective's material.

5. "Go to Sleep" has a guitar centric opening, with a characteristically progressive, moving bass line provided by Colin Greenwood (along with U2's Adam Clayton one of the most underrated bass players in rock). There is something of the guitar centric movement one associates with The Bends on the middle section of the tune, and one is almost ready for an explosion in the mold of "Just," but the lead figures Johnny eventually overlays are not nearly so discordant nor lead-like as those on the earlier song, and surprisingly, as we are expecting some kind of climax, the track fades out... It's almost like the band is toying with us...

6. "Where I End and You Begin" Bass-heavy intro with ethereal analog synth waves cloaking us, we enter into a driving fog, a movement towards we know not what. Thom's vocals again provide the illusion of direction, but the overall mood is still one of profound discontent. I'm beating a dead horse, I know, but the reason people are down on this record is because it's, well, dark as hell!

7. "We Suck Young Blood" Predictably no break from the unrelenting misery here. The interlude vocals are beautifully interwoven, and the hand-claps are an unexpected touch for Radiohead, but overall this track is Thom at his most discordant. This track is why people hate Thom Yorke. The piano drone riff that kicks off around 3:00 briefly gives us a hint of progress, but in a matter of seconds we are back to dreary dissolution. Hints of Thom's future Twilight involvement in the theme here?

8. "The Gloaming" is eltronica central, for this record, and it may as well be called the "glooming" because it is about as dank and fog-ridden as you can get with a staticy electronic beat backing you. The interplay of beats is an advance on the brilliant "Idioteque" in some senses, but here there is something missing... Perhaps it is a melody that resolves in a satisfying way?

9. With "There There" we finally reach a moment of release. And what release. This is among my favorite songs by the band. The booming tom toms combined with the electric introductory guitar riff set the stage perfectly. Thom then comes in singing a resolution-laden melody! When he gets to the 'chorus' the crunch of Ed and Johnny's guitars is positively divine, and the second chorus, where Thom resolves up instead of down on the second "just cause you feel it/doesn't mean it's there" is simply sublime. The transition that follows, while looking back to other segmented compositions such as "Paranoid Android" also looks forward to the progressive structures to be found on such In Rainbows gems as "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." The second half of the song returns us to the loud, clangy noise (influenced by Sonic Youth as much as Zeppelin) we associate with a younger version of the band ("My Iron Lung," "Paranoid Android," etc.). This song ultimately plays a role similar to that played by "Optimistic" on Kid A; it is in keeping with the tone of the rest of the album, but it also hearkens back to an older, more familiar sound. I consider this to be the album's peak.

10. "I Will" (the same title as a brief The Beatles cut by Paul McCartney) brings us back to the limited pallet introduced earlier. The harmony singing here is both impressive and effective, and there is something simply appealing about the composition of the song, something almost Spanish or Classical in its structure...

11. "A Punchup at a Wedding" More hints of direction here, with an almost Madman Across the Water-era Elton John opening over a funky electronic beat. Thom's vocals immediately dispel any further comparisons to Mr. Dwight, and the progressive guitar riff that comes in suggests we are again in the land of resolution... The chorus, which comes in around the 1:50 mark, is heartbreaking, if possibly cloying to some ears (not these, I'm just guessing...)... This, like "There There" has the feeling and structure we more commonly associate with a 'song'... The rest of the album seems interested in testing this boundary, seeing how completely feigned structures can stand in for the real thing... Or something. I like this one. The sample that comes in around 4:00 is great and adds a layer of continuity with some of the earlier songs, in that it offers a cold counterpoint.

12. "Myxomatosis" heavy, odd time-signature guitar figure opens here with a crushing synth bass doubling. Despite this daunting opening, the interplay between the synth and Thom's voice works well, particularly given the contrast created when the synths drop out. Synths that drop in around 1:40 are amazing texturally. No chorus in sight. This is an impressive track, despite its bending back to the mean in some senses, definitely worth re-hearing if it's been a while.

13. "Scatterbrain" Perhaps the first overt jabs at pure beauty, 54 minutes into the album? Okay. Live, touchable guitar figure opens this piece. Can the delicate warmth last? Yes! We have a very melodic Thom here, singing over some well modulated changes. Dissonance undergirds, as ever, but the separation of the melodic and the discordant is finally at peace, the two halves having reached some accord over the song's first minute. The promise is fulfilled, a great number.

14. "A Wolf at the Door" Back to the dissonance, punky delivery of the first song, mixed with the processional grandeus or "Life in a Glass House"... We're getting close to the end. What's that? A great chorus? Awesome! Didn't see that one coming guys, nice work. Great song. Great way to end an extremely challenging album.


Final verdict? As I say just above, a challenging record, and one in its way as dark as Closer or In Utero. Happily this album did not precede a suicide but was instead a stop along the way to the glorious In Rainbows and the interesting new tracks emerging now... Were this produced by any other band it would be hailed as a masterpiece. It has a bleakness of its own. It makes me understand new aspects of depression, of obsession, of the desperation inherent in trying to be. I think it's a great album.

Best albums to come out since Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Critical reception is a funny thing. Critics are obsessed with listing and relisting their favorite albums; thus an album, though it of course remains static once released (ignoring reissues with bonus tracks as a generally malignant phenomenon), in some critics’ ears will “get better” over time. This might be called “the fine wine syndrome.” And no album has benefited more from this than Aeroplane.

When it first came out, Pitchfork gave it merely 8.7. (For some perspective, let’s recall that they instantly anointed …And You Will Know Us by Our Trail of Dead, Source Tags and Codes a 10.0. Good call?! guys...) But when the Aeroplane reissue dropped in 2005, what do you know, the review was upgraded to a 10.0. And no one had a problem with this. And that was just.

It was like when those Joy Division reissues came out. If Pitchfork had given them anything less than a 10.0, their reading audience would have been very angry. No doubt, if Pitchfork had existed in 1979, they would have given Unknown Pleasures an 8.5 and Closer a 9.0. My backlash against their Trail of Dead review demonstrates the wisdom of this kind of skepticism about contemporary records.

With this as backdrop, I thought I’d "manifest" my ten favorite records released since 1998. Some of them will have begun to experience the "fine wine syndrome” while others remain relatively obscure, and others are just obvious. But like all would be internet music scribes, I treasure hierarchy and worship at the temple of order. Here is my list:

10. Little Wings, Magic Wand: We'll start the list off with the album that has perhaps the most Aeroplane-like intensity in its lyrics. Kyle Field is a great visual artist, but I would also argue he is a tremendous Whitmanian poet of the first order, and this album, particularly the songs "So What" and "Everybody," is his masterpiece.



9. Modest Mouse, The Moon & Antarctica: This is the album where all of the great Isaac Brock stuff we liked from the 90s coalesced into something larger, something "universal" in a rather literal way in terms of the album's themes. It's a great record and it has aged very well; and the stuff they've done subsequently, while 'bigger' on a commercial scale, is also pretty good, which in itself is impressive.



8. Grizzly Bear, Yellow House: This album is great because it has such life and lightness simultaneously matched with density and darkness. The Rossen/Droste songwriting team is dynamic and dialectical; you have two divergent sensibilities merged both via instrumentation and Chris Taylor's excellent recording techniques, which itself is like a third song-writer. The group has a sound that is distinctive and definitive of an aesthetic all its own. For that, we are all thankful. Grizzly Bear are themselves the embodiment of taste in our modern era.



7. Joanna Newsom, The Milk-Eyed Mender: On a pure songwriting and instrumentation level, this album is one of the most miraculous debuts of all time. People have problems with the voice, and some tell me her music is "too intense" but I find these objections extraneous. The core of the music is so pure, so brilliantly structured and clean in its embodiment of a generously human spirit, that one cannot help but listen long and deeply to these songs.



6. Sigur Ros, Ágætis Byrjun This album has become a cliche of itself, but I still remember the first time I heard it on my car stereo right after it came out--it was and is unbelievably moving. There are layers here, and the use of reverb is paradigm-altering good. Though they have continued down an at times too similar road, this record continues to shimmer with resplendent substance.



5. Radiohead, In Rainbows: This album was announced and released in record time. A true surprise. its pricing structure (which yielded more profits than their last album before the record was physically released) gave the album an immense press boost.

Also the music was so clean, so incredibly awesome both in classic RH song structures and unbelievably great contemporary productions; it was better than we had any reason to expect it could possibly be, and in being so, it changed everyone's expectations of what is now possible.



4. Dirty Projectors, The Getty Address: This albums is an under-appreciated masterpiece. It combines the best elements of the Guided by Voices influenced lo-fi (that is suddenly popular again) with the best of the electronic artists to come along, both in hip-hop and in rock. The use of orchestral sounds and choruses layered on top of this fundamentally transgressive rhythmic core is what makes this record such a world changer. If you haven't heard it, or have only heard the group's other more recent (and also brilliant) records Rise Above and Bitte, Orca, give this one a whirl; it will blow your mind. It is the contemporary reinvention of opera, post-hip-hop and post-Bjork.



3. The Microphones, The Glow Pt. 2: If I had to pick a music recording grouped as an "album" that was somehow equivalent to Wordsworth's "Poems in Two Volumes" of 1807, I would be hard-pressed to select an album other than this one by Phil Elverum as The Microphones. He blends textures of emotion into environmental textures. It is wonderful to hear.



2. Bjork, Vespertine: A record that continued the work of broadening our awareness--and in doing so destroyed all of our preconceptions of what might follow. If you don't dig this record, I don't know what to say. It is without a doubt miraculously imprinting.



1. Radiohead, Kid A: This album is perhaps the best sounding record ever. The melding of rock and dance impulses works in a way that is different than say, New Order or Depeche Mode. It has a folkloric element, as though Radiohead were our Stravinsky among the village ravers. And through this sensitiveity it succeeds in fusing two major traditions in English popular music into a stunning and dark whole. Kid A was a game changer, and probably the best album since Aeroplane.



Okay, so there we have it, my first effort at such a compendium. This will be updated.