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The other night I dreamt that I was a young girl. I was about 10 years old, give or take a year or two - old enough to be pretty, but too young to be sexy to all but the most prurient interests. And I was pretty.
This reminded me of a famous anecdote from the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi. I’ll quote it in whole here, since I don’t think Burton Watson (82 years old!) will be harmed at this point. For the sake of consistency I’ll take the liberty of using the pinyin spelling of Zhuangzi’s name.
Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.
What separates my experience from Zhuangzi’s is that when I was the little girl I had full recognition of myself as Jason. What I mean is that my mind was put in this little girl’s body, with all of my knowledge and experiences and none of hers. But I knew what I was and I knew what others perceived me as and acted accordingly. It was quite thrilling to behave in a way so contrary to my typical nature and demeanor, I must admit. I enjoyed being the girl.
But this has troubling implications for me. Whereas Zhuangzi was questioning the nature of experience and reality and a whole host of other things, my butterfly retained my identity. So I am either a little pixie who has quite psychotic fantasies of living 22 years as a lonely schlub, or I’m a 22 year old man less than 2 weeks away from graduating college who dreams of being a little girl. I am not sure which would be worse.
I’m going to segue here into a totally different, less interesting topic. But maybe it won’t seem totally different to you, I don’t know. I had the idea for this section the night of my dream, before I fell asleep. Interpret my own connection of them as you will.
I love the hell out of E=MC² so far. It sticks pretty closely to the blueprint of Mimi, but it’s far more consistent, with less irritating featured performances and more plain old Mariah pop songwriting. It might even be her best since Daydream, but since I don’t have copies of the older albums to refresh my memory I’m not going to make that claim.
But one thing I’ve noticed is that “I’ll Be Lovin’ U Long Time” sounds exactly like an Amerie cut. This isn’t a bad thing, since it’s a great tune, but it’s surprising to me that Mariah would so openly ape a follower. Especially one who isn’t massively popular. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, as this is the only track with such a sound. I don’t know much about producer DJ Toomp.
The title track to Kid A might be the worst Radiohead song I’ve yet heard. That’s all I’m going to say at this point.
I love this album. I admit that I was wrong to dismiss Radiohead simply because of my distaste for their material in this decade.
To begin with, Pink Floyd comparisons are not fair, and that’s because OK Computer is way better than anything Pink Floyd ever did, not the other way around. I don’t like Pink Floyd, but unlike the case with my indifference to Radiohead I’m intimately familiar with all of Floyd’s major works. Unlike virtually everything Floyd did after Piper, Radiohead sounds like an actual band, with actual people writing actual songs together. There is a sense of realness in everything they do, no matter how abstract, that Pink Floyd could never touch, always feeling like the product of someone’s ego. It’s always seemed to me that almost all great bands are dominated by one or two geniuses, but that isn’t clearly the case at all with Radiohead, although Yorke and Greenwood get all the attention.
Now the songs. They’re all no less than good, and there are only two I can point out as being less than great - “Exit Music (For a Film)” and “The Tourist.” The former is an evolution of songs like “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” on The Bends, but worked out better than that, especially once the fuzz bass comes in. But overall it doesn’t fit the mood of the disc well, and I just don’t find Yorke very affecting here. “The Tourist” is a little boring in comparison to everything that comes before it, but I can’t deny that it makes an effective last song. In any case, like “Exit Music,” everything that could be squeezed out of the tune has been.
OK Computer begins with “Airbag,” a song that, with its lumbering Crimsonesque riff and meandering melody could have easily been no better than its predecessors on The Bends. But the cut up percussion samples and a clever (!) Yorke lyric work some magic with those traditional elements. Enough things have been said about “Paranoid Android” that I won’t even bother. “Subterranean Homesick Alien” is almost as good, with the first truly emotionally affecting Yorke performance and lyric. You’ll notice that’s a trend here - although there are still some dumb lines here and there, the lyrics have taken a massive step forward. “Let Down” is almost impossibly lush, and you know “Karma Police.” All I have to add is that the coda makes the song.
I’m not sure what to say about “Fitter Happier.” It’s short, and it’s not terribly annoying; the synthesized voice was a good move. I bet it makes a good concert intro piece. But its “be yourself” message is only marginally more sophisticated than the average Hannah Montana song. “Electioneering” is finally a full-blown rocker, and it comes at a perfect time. “Climbing Up the Walls” is another brilliant example of experimentation and artsiness used only to service the song, a common thread through OK Computer. And finally, “No Surprises” and “Lucky” aren’t very surprising, as it happens, but they’re very good nonetheless.
After really listening to OK Computer closely, I understand why Radiohead did what they did. This is such a meticulously written and arranged album that they had nowhere to go with this sound without repeating themselves. But, like I said above, it never sounds sterile. It’s just a beautiful piece of work, deserving of almost all the praise it gets. A couple of weaker tracks prevent me from calling it the best album ever, or even the best of its time, but I still feel comfortable saying that OK Computer is a 5 star album.
I’m moving on to Kid A next. I remember finding it decent but boring at the time, and not as revolutionary as claimed. That second statement is probably still true, but we’ll see how much I like it now. I hope it doesn’t disappoint me again. It’s going to be tough to get through the undoubtedly weaker Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief if I don’t like Kid A at all.
I know, I’ve been remiss in my Radiohead listening duties. I’ve been more busy than usual lately and it’s been harder for me to get deep into OK Computer and pay attention, as what’s clearly the best song is 2nd on the album (as opposed to “My Iron Lung” being the 8th song on The Bends).
Idol just finished a few minutes ago. No one did anything too fantastic, although David C. certainly gave his least reprehensible performance. Syesha, of course, picked “I Will Always Love You,” and mimicked Whitney Houston. But Dolly Parton was a mistake, I think. I like Dolly just fine, but she’s a good songwriter, not a great one. Most of these songs just aren’t very good when sung by other people. A boring night overall.
Let me get this out of the way first: “Fake Plastic Trees” is easily the worst song on this album. It’s also, as usual, the longest. Why this underwritten piece of whinery has been elevated to the level of all-time classic is astonishing to me. There’s better stuff all around it.
Now that that’s finished with: I like this album. I like it a pretty decent amount. It took a little while to grow on me, but that’s why I don’t review stuff after listening to it once. This certainly isn’t the five star masterpiece it’s passed off as - there are just too many mediocre songs for it to be that - but it’s a big leap forward from Pablo Honey.
I’ve already remarked on the worst song on the album, so let me talk about the best - “My Iron Lung” is certainly the first truly great song Radiohead ever wrote, and if everything they did were this good they might actually deserve their reputation. It almost veers a little too close to sounding like early 90s Adrian Belew - Yorke sounds uncannily like Belew channeling Lennon and McCartney - but Yorke is way more morose, and it works here. For once the rest of the band sound like they’re having fun, too.
The other two standout songs for me are “The Bends” and “Bones,” both of which are powerful rockers built around real riffs and memorable vocal melodies. “Just” almost fits into that same category, but while the band gives it their all and there are a couple of really cool parts, the tune just isn’t very good. The instrumental improvement is the real story here - Colin Greenwood has obviously been listening to a lot of Paul McCartney, or maybe Paul McCartney by way of Mike Mills. I won’t pretend to know who’s doing the guitar playing where, because I have no idea, but it’s a lot more varied than on Pablo Honey. Selway doesn’t really contribute much here, but he isn’t bad.
Bad. Let me talk more about that. Actually, besides “Fake Plastic Trees,” nothing here is unlistenable. But there are a bunch of somewhat average songs that don’t contribute much to the whole. “(Nice Dream),” “Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was,” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” are just boring, with soundalike guitar parts and listless performances by Yorke. A little better are “Black Star” and “Sulk,” but we’re still dealing with basic rock songs that would’ve fit in on Pablo easily. The bassline to “Sulk” sounds cribbed from “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” but I’m probably the only person that’d bother. And “Planet Telex” and “High and Dry” never feel as good as they should be.
But a lot of that is just nitpicking. The Bends ain’t great, but it is a very solid album, and I could see myself listening to at least significant chunks of it just for pleasure. And that’s all I’m looking for. I really want to give this album 4 stars, but I feel like it actually deserves 3.5. I hate ultra-specific grading systems, but this is my personal blog so who gives a shit? Let’s compromise and say that it’s a 3.75 out of 5 for now. Next we’ll be getting into the realm of Radiohead albums I actually have some non-infinitesimal experience with. It’s been some ten years or so since I’ve listened to OK Computer, and I have high hopes for it after developing an appreciation for The Bends.
I’m really starting to dig this song. Opinion postponed for a while, because I didn’t get a chance to listen to The Bends today. There’s still a bunch of forgettable songs here, but I’m starting to warm to it enough to get it into 3.5 star territory, maybe. I’m going to have high hopes for OK Computer after this.
This is kind of a down day, since I haven’t listened to The Bends enough to make a formal opinion (sneak preview: meh). But I still feel like writing a little about the claimed influence that Radiohead supposedly has had over the past 1x number of years. Even those who don’t particularly like Radiohead, like me, are quick to give them names like “the most important band in the world,” and, inevitably, “the most influential band in the world.” But is this true?
Well…if it is, I don’t see it. The Bends is probably their most copied album - they quickly went onto things that are (perhaps) not so easy to copy - but the influence it’s had seems pretty limited from where I’m sitting. The most commonly cited impact is that on bands like Coldplay and their ilk. Now, I’m not an expert on Coldplay at all, but what I’ve heard (the hits mainly) doesn’t particularly sound like the vast majority of The Bends. Coldplay clearly doesn’t have the same desire to push boundaries as Radiohead, and the only song here that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Coldplay album is “High and Dry.” And, really, none of these bands besides Coldplay themselves have made much of an extended impact in America. Radiohead’s influence on the rock mainstream here is minimal, to say the least, and I’m certainly not passing that off as a Good Thing. Would that there were no bands like this on our side of the Atlantic.
But - you might say - I’m just looking at the mainstream. Surely Radiohead, you might say, being one of the most progressive rock bands around these days, has had a greater impact on the indie scene. You might say a lot of things, but that doesn’t make them true. I can’t think of one prominent indie rock band that has the Radiohead of any time period as a strong influence. If anyone’s set the tone for what’s popular right now in indie music, it’s this guy and his buddies.
Time will tell, I suppose. However I may feel about them, Radiohead is clearly an extremely popular and respected band, by both common folk and fellow musicians. I couldn’t tell you why they’ve had such little impact so far on the various scenes they touch. Given what a guy with a nice laptop and a home studio can do these days, I don’t buy the argument that they’re just too hard to imitate. Maybe I’m just wrong - I don’t listen to anything approaching the totality of indie and alternative music. If that’s the case, drop me a line and let me know who I’m missing.
We start here with Radiohead’s first LP, Pablo Honey. This is the album usually most ignored by the Radiohead fanbase, and there’s good reason for that: it just isn’t anything particularly memorable. Much has been said of their early U2-meets-Seattle sound, but that’s not the problem here; they actually sound pretty good and, more than anything, well-practiced. The problem is that, with the exception of a few songs, everything just kind of floats by. The hooks, when they exist at all, are beyond slight, frequently with the one note per chord melodies typical to the worst of the grunge scene. And the lyrics mostly suck, but that’s not unusual for alt-rock of this time period.
The record starts off well, with the first three songs all being pretty good. “Creep” loses some points for being a rewrite of “The Air That I Breathe,” but it probably deserved to be about as big a hit as it was. But then we come to “Stop Whispering,” a really embarrassing R.E.M. imitation. “Dear Sir, I have a complaint, can’t remember what it is”? It’s also, for some reason, the longest song on the album. (Green Plastic claims “Stop Whispering” is a Pixies tribute - say what? Are we thinking of the same Pixies here?) After this, everything just gets fuzzy. “Anyone Can Play Guitar” is kind of cute, but not really lasting. “Ripcord” is another decent tune in the same vein, but after 4 or 5 listens I could not tell you a single thing about the songs between it and “Blow Out,” a whitebread attempt at rock samba with more self-pitying Thom Yorke lyrics before finally culminating in a cool guitar solo.
In case I’m sounding harsh, I don’t mean to be. This is a solid debut album, but, putting myself into the point of view of a listener in 1993, I can’t imagine Radiohead ever becoming a favorite band. There’s no indication at all of what’s to come, whether you view that as a good thing or not. Pablo Honey is ultimately forgettable, with little to distinguish it from the myriad other “alternative rock” bands around at the time. Even when Radiohead gets loud, there’s little passion or force behind it - more than anything they sound timid here. They take some cues from Sonic Youth, usually on the best tracks, but they do it with none of the Sonik verve. Radiohead’s most “rawk” album isn’t doing much to diminish my perception of them as being bloodless and wimpy. Let’s say 2.5 out of 5 stars for Pablo Honey.
I’ll be looking next at The Bends, usually claimed to be Radiohead’s great leap forward. We’ll see.
Everyone who knows me, and I think there are still a few of those who occasionally read this, knows that I dislike Radiohead. Some part of that is just me being contrary, but most of it actually is based on music - I thought Radiohead was just OK, your average alternative rock band, in the 90s, but I actively hated Kid A. It sounded to me like stale “experimentation” lifted from their electronic forebears merged with mediocre rock songwriting. And Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief were just boring. Thom Yorke’s puerile political views that constantly seep into his lyrics haven’t helped with this perception. Actually, Yorke’s lyrics in general have always seemed pretty bad to me.
But I can’t help always thinking that I’m not being fair here. Radiohead does have some detractors besides me, but the overwhelming majority of listeners, including people I respect, love them. More than that, they’re viewed as the rock band of today, the band that somehow redeems the mainstream, or something. Every once in a while I try to reevaluate where I stand with certain music that gets a lot of critical respect. Not because I need to align my views with what others have to say - that’s obviously not true if you’ve read a couple entries on this blog - but because it is my opinion that it’s always better to “get” something than it is to not get it. More so in this case, because if I do figure out how to like Radiohead I’ll be rewarded with more than just some more good music to listen to; I’ll be rewarded with supposed all-time classics.
So to that end in the upcoming weeks I’m going to attempt to completely revise my views on Radiohead. What I’m going to do is start with Pablo Honey and move all the way on up to In Rainbows, listening to each one at least four times over at least two days. And after each day I’m going to write my impressions of the album. Simple, right? But I felt like it needed a preface, to explain why I’m doing this.
If this works out smashingly then I might do Nine Inch Nails next. Them I’ve never hated, but like Radiohead I thought they were decent (but not extraordinary) in the 90s and then just started ignoring them. But it seems like they definitely have a broader audience now than they did then, or maybe their fans have just grown up. I also have more respect for Trent Reznor as a person than for anyone in Radiohead - he genuinely seems like a thoughtful and intelligent guy, and his experimentations in online business have been far more ballsy than Radiohead’s. But we’ll get to that later.
