week of 7/16/03
 
 
 

Radiohead — A darker side of things
By Hunter Pope

Doom. Despair. Rabbit Diseases. Wolves at the Door. Orwellian nightmares. Capitalist vampires. Paranoia. Death.

Comforting, eh? Welcome to Radiohead’s sixth album, Hail to the Thief. I call it the soundtrack for fear, non-catchy tunes that breath utter hopelessness. By comparison, the word “pessimism” seems rooted in a field of four leaf clovers.

Yet, as my speakers sour from the verbal onslaught of Thief, and my mind reek of ochre thoughts, I continue to repeat the digital gloom. Why? Because it’s Radio-head, a band that stays at the top of the charts (the album debuted at No. 1), and sells out arenas faster than Man O’ War’s legs. And, somehow, they take that one syllable word, “pop,” and manifest it into something greater, turning it into bizarre honesty and effortless complexity.

Technically, they’re one of the most superior bands on tour (Rolling Stone named them, behind U2, the best live band in the world). A guitar, bass, drums, and keyboard seem like Paleolithic instruments to a band that uses theramins, moogs, glockenspiels, samplers, toy pianos, laptops, and other assorted technical wonderments. Brothers, Jonny Greenwood (guitar and assorted accoutrements) and Colin Greenwood (bass, string synth, sampler), drummer Phil Selway and guitarist Ed O’ Brien play their instruments like dedicated mad scientists, infinitely tweaking their sounds as if satisfaction is an unobtainable Holy Grail.

Lyrically, the band employs a roving madman, Thom Yorke, to disassemble each word and turn it into feverish labyrinths. Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer once wrote of Yorke that he visualizes himself here as “the last individualist in a colony of worker drones,” who resists mind control by “think[ing] in junk scrambles.” The eccentric Yorke is definitely the center of attention, a bizarre weathervane that attracts a flurry of fans. His voice reaches crescendos that seem whiney blasphemy to some ears and pure honey to others. Yorke’s stark features suggest the world’s status, and his words seem like the soundtrack to Orwell’s brain.

The band formed in 1988, while attending Oxford. They became the center of attention in 1993 when their single, “Creep” (still they’re most accessible song) became popular amid the grunge tones of Nirvana and Pearl Jam. 1995’s “The Bends” moved Radiohead from one-hit wonderland to a band that understood pop intricacy without the bubblegum aftertaste.

But no one expected, Ok Computer, the 1997 album that one magazine bravely called the “greatest album of the 20th century.” Full of samples, atmospheric tales, and lush instrumentation, Ok Computer marked Radiohead as one of the most important English bands since the Beatles, Pink Floyd (the band they’re compared to the most) and the Rolling Stones. Their seething lyrics coupled with an instrumental beauty (the song “Karma Police” is outright gorgeous) drew in fans like continent-sized flypaper.

Radiohead then went in opposite direction with the minimalist Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), two albums that went away from hands-on instrumentation to computerized music and cerebral arrangements. The abundant sounds of the past albums gave way to a slimmed down industrial feel. Kid A reached flawed masterpiece status while Amnesiac dulled with time.

The anticipation for Hail to the Thief (released on June 9 on Capitol Records) seemed like waiting for a charismatic leader to call the next revolution. The band, known for their attention to every melodic granule, pared down their recording time to two weeks. They even sidestepped their usually dour landscape by recording in L.A.

“It was like a beach vacation,” Yorke told MTV of Radiohead’s time working on the album in L.A. “We did everything we weren’t supposed to do, and we felt kind of sick afterwards. It was like eating too much chocolate or something. It didn’t feel like the world was going to end, so we wanted to make the sort of sounds that get you up in the morning and [that] sort of have a positive energy to them. It was the most fun we’ve ever had in the studio.”

Ah, Thom, you tongued trickster. Sounds that get you up in the morning? How about sounds that permeate the thick lining of the brain and squat until madness ensues ....

Positive energy? Well, I don’t think anyone could look at these lyrics and perceive rainbows and unicorns. Perhaps it’s the overall message, a need to make listeners aware that the world is approaching a toxic quagmire. Radiohead’s vision of the world soured after the U.S.’s response to 9-11, and Yorke’s voice rang around the world declaring that, “The U.S. is being run by religious bigots that stole the election.”

Hail to the Thief can certainly be looked at as an album in response to the world after 9-11. Although the band denies it, many perceive the album’s title to be a salute to George Bush. And the lyrics certainly don’t help the band’s denial — “the appropriate moment to steal the throne so to speak and insert one of their own one of the brethren.”

Is it another breakthrough album? No and yes. The ground on Hail already has familiar tread, and it’s like a compendium of all their other albums. The early angst of Pablo Honey (the debut album) is rectified on “2 +2=5”, the first cut off the new record. The verdant instrumentation and dreamy vocals of “Go To Sleep”, “There There” (Yorke confessed that he wept uncontrollably after the mixdown of this song) and “Punchup at the Wedding” recall Ok Computer, and the minimal intensity of “Sit Down Stand Up” (where the word “Raindrops” is repeated 47 times) tips the hat to the first explorations of Kid A.

However, it’s still a remarkable album. It’s extraordinary in the sense that I felt uncomfortable at the initial listen, annoyed by the second, adaptive by the third, cozy by the fourth, and amazed ever since. Sampling exists, but so do stripped down New Orleans piano forays (off the very dark and vampiric, “We Suck Young Blood”). Guitars feedback with fluidity, and vocal rants sound like Brothers Grimm recitations (Yorke said that some of the songs are based on bleak fairy tales he read as a boy).

The personalities on Hail could be a model for a psychological institute. The unpredictability of each song swings like mood pendulums. The electronic opening of “2+2=5” (a guitar plugging into an amp) drops into rootsy instrumentation. “We Suck Young Blood” does ebb and flow between naked vocals to swirly meltdowns. The last song “The Wolves at the Door” reads like a rabid manifesto (with a literary nod to the “Stepford Wives”), yet the ending makes it one of the most gorgeous songs on the record.

Hail to the Thief should make Radiohead even more popular. Somehow, by making their music inaccessible (there’s not been a bonified top 40 hit since “Creep”), they’ve turned into the next great band. Listening to Radiohead for the first time reminds me of those mythical watering holes that only the deities know about. Mortals must brave harsh elements, death-defying climbs, and carnivorous beasts in order to get there. Folks with timid ears will shut off Radiohead instantly. One must have an almost Darwin instinct to pilfer through the quintet’s madness. But, once the insanity is understood, subjects like death, doom, and despair become old friends.