Since my stint at the Westword appears to have been put on hiatus, I figured I’d throw this one down — indulgent, questionable, and to some — a downright blasphemous rant. I say, “go fuck yourself Radiohead fans,” you’re already masturbating into a jar of your own shame by claiming allegiance to one of the most uptight piles of pretention to grace the earth, you might as well feed your narcissism by saving copies of yourself for clones. Be sure to follow the links for a more informed view.
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Radiohead’s OK Computer is considered one of the greatest albums of all time by fans and critics alike. Most would be willing to take off their glasses and argue with anyone who said that the band went to hell right after this release. Since being a journalist is all about taking risks and challenging danger with a stern look and half-ticked grin, it is the declaration of this reviewer that Radiohead did just that. Now before your undies get crunched into a ball and your fists tighten, calm yourself with a glass of tea, close your eyes and think really hard about what the band has done for the last 11 years.
After OK Computer was released, Radiohead felt like they had something to prove. When a band thinks they have something to prove, the missteps and faults in their plan become more and more apparent. Radiohead lost sight of what it was that drove them to make an album like OK Computer, they began making albums because they didn’t have any other choice.
When looking back on their earlier releases you’ll notice common themes that run through both the lyrics and the music – they sound like a band. A band that was doing what they did simply because that is all they wanted to do, not because they had to. Pablo Honey and The Bends showcase a band that was coming into itself and exploring a number of styles and themes. Without effects Thom Yorke’s vocals were haunting yet eerily familiar, the guitar was layered and pulsated through tracks that were full of life and hope. OK Computer brought everything together – it showed how technology and instrumentation could combine in a fashion that still felt like a full band was sitting inside the recording booth. It was a release that redefined pop music, and even those that don’t appreciate it can appreciate many of the other bands that were afforded an opportunity because of Radiohead’s success. Arguing whether or not OK Computer is a great album is pointless, because it’s not the actual content of the album that matters, but the subsequent fallout in the industry. Pop music was now able to be looked at from new directions and viewed through a looking glass that was not always in 4/4 time, not always at 120 beats per minute, and not always in tune.
Yet the critical and financial success of Radiohead drove them into the ground. After touring, breakdowns, breakups, chaos and whatever other drama a band can muster, they decided to head back into the studio for more. And this time there was expectation, intrigue and the eyes of the world on them. Two albums came of this, Amnesiac and Kid A, and both are pathetic excuses at music, melody, pop, and concepts. The critics said that these were concept albums, full of planning and mood. In fact, calling anything that Radiohead does a conceptual album is stabbing Rick Wakemen in the back, it’s pulling Peter Gabriel’s larynx out, it’s ripping Neil Peart’s hands off and feeding them to Justin Timberlake. It’s just wrong. An album can have a theme, or a little inside tract about songwriting but that doesn’t make it a concept album. Radiohead does not make concept albums. They make pop music. I don’t care how “insane” or “unconventional” you think “The National Anthem” is, it’s nothing more than button mashing and walls of texture and sound. Both albums are just that – there is no theme here, other than the theme we’re already used to, “whiney baby that views life through the eyes of spiders and snakes and thinks that the whole world is out to get him.” There is nothing wrong with this theme, a lot of music seems to fit happily into the same box, a lot of really bad literature does too.
Listen to Amnesiac and Kid A, listen closely, tune in, forget OK Computer, forget Radiohead – what you have in your eardrums is a tinny, reverb laden rambling from a pathetic band so lost inside itself that it can’t even muster the strength to make a comprehensible song. Cutting out the words and lyrics would make Kid A sound like a Tangerine Dream record being played at a soft volume while your neighbor cranks up Charles Mingus.
If you’re a fan of Radiohead I know exactly what you’re thinking right now – and I can tell you that the “he just doesn’t get it” argument isn’t going to work on me. I’ve been there and done that, and will argue until my death that producing an album like Kid A is a simple process that only involves time and technology, nothing more.
Then came Hail to the Thief, almost as an afterthought the band released an album that ventured around the globe without ever actually going anywhere. Hail to the Thief is an album that many simply shrugged too and were settled with the fact that it was another Radiohead album, so it must be amazing. It must generate a hoo-hah. This was the greatest band in the world releasing another great record.
Thankfully if the fans were unsure of what to think, plenty of critics the world over told them it was okay, “Don’t worry,” they said, “Radiohead is still a marvel.”
It became obvious that the band had truly given up with the release of In Rainbows, an album hailed by many to be a “return to form,” or in plain speak, “okay, so those last three albums really sucked, I see that now, and this is more like the older ones, which if I’m honest with myself, I like more.” The record, of course, was released on a pay scale that would make Marx cream his panties and therefore could have theoretically found itself in more homes than any Radiohead album before it.
But the fact is that only Radiohead fans wanted it. They aren’t turning heads anymore, they aren’t defining anything other than there own insignificant lives. It’s been 11 years since OK Computer was released and the band still hasn’t found its new voice. They’re stuck rinsing and repeating a cycle that, by all other scoreboards, has far surpassed them. The lyrics are just as dry and childish (really, if you’re honest with yourself is “I’m an animal trapped in your hot car” deep? Or is it something a High School student writes on their notebook in English class?) as they ever were, the music is hacked together studio tricks that anyone with Logic or Protools and half a music sense could produce.
Radiohead have helped define new pop music, given rise to hundreds of admirable bands, yet can’t pull themselves up. They are stuck, they sound bored, they are seriously in need of a reinvention – a Kathleen Brennan or a Rick Rubin. They sound like they’ve given up – which is probably why we all still listen. We can feel a sense of urgency with each release after OK Computer, and we all sit in eager anticipation waiting for the inevitable explosion, the water cooler conversation, the tears, the headlines, the solo albums, the end.
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This article is a biggest joke i have ever read, who are you? you should be the one to go to hell!