Radiohead

Item: Hail to the Thief
Author: Steve Stockman

Hail to the Thief

(2003)

Reviewed by Steve Stockman

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Label Capitol RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth2003

alternative rock art rock experimental

Part of me admires Radiohead though my fandom disappeared with Kid A. No longer would I listen for pleasure but for analysis and though some of that analysis is enjoyable and sometimes fascinating, there is a faint suspicion that is hard to admit in public that maybe they are just full of it. I imagine there are those who struggle to admit that they no longer enjoy the band and others who continue listening in the delusion believing that they do really like it. I do not deny that there are still those who genuinely love it but I think they are fewer than the sales figures will reveal.

Another part of me is angry and at the end of my tether with Radiohead, angry at the games they are playing with their public. There are those artists who compromise their vision and their art to sell records, to chart to get the swimming pool. They write and mix songs with the radio in mind and their true vocation is lost in their dumbing down for public acceptance. They are and should be despised. Radiohead seem to be an antithesis of such compromise and yet as I listen to Hail to the Thief I wonder.

Are Mr Yorke and his Oxford pals really telling us that it is not within their hearts to write another song that grabs the attention like a "Creep" or "Fake Plastic Trees" or a "Lucky" or a "No Surprises?" It seems that they are inverted compromisers determined to be as obtuse as possible for the sake of being obtuse. This is not their true calling either. The guitars are back on Hail to the Thief and lyrics worth printing on the CD booklet but it does not mean that the songs are any more accessible than Kid A or Amnesiac. We have a word in north Antrim where I am from; thran. It is someone who is being hard headed awkward with a self satisfied wry grin in their soul at the fact that they are winding you up with their unreasonableness. Radiohead are Thran Band of the Decade! The most amazing thing about it is that they go straight in at number 1 again and after a guitar band releasing two experimental electro pop meanderings and a live one they are still phenomenally popular. Radiohead are something!

Having said that of course my mate David Dark is right in his book Everyday Apocalypse when he writes, "Like all apocalypse, Radiohead rewards repeated listening and dooms to madness the cursory look." This fact and not the music itself might be why I am a little peeved. In this modern world with all that needs doing and all that needs a listening or watching how can I give this album the number of plays needed for it to not only make sense but become a great album. Maybe I'll eventually come to understand or maybe I'll be hypnotized into the delusion.

Another observation that might have as much to do with me as them is that it seems to me that Radiohead makes more sense live than in the living room. There is an emotional and spiritual impact that these songs can conjure live that is a little lost once it is set in an artificial space. There are very few straightforward radio hits though there are songs that begin with the anticipation of such. "Sit Down," "Stand Up," "Sail To the Moon," "There, There," particularly have beautiful intros but then they create a chaos or an uneasiness that again will pack a great punch live. Persevere to the end though for "Scatterbrain" is as close to an undamaged ballad and "Wolf At the Door" is a wordy rapish thing that really works. You see already am repeated listens is paying dividends!

The birth of Yorke's son Noah has its effects on and between the lines. There are dinosaurs, monsters Snakes and Ladders and wolves at the door kidnapping children. The key line in the children's story "Chicken Licken" becomes a concluding idea on 2 + 2 = 5. Yorke says himself that "Sail To the Moon" is being dreamed of as a future President though one who would "know right from wrong" in another attack on George W whose election debacle is found in the album's title. In the same song he takes the role of his Biblical namesake and builds an ark. In that line you begin to understand how carefully Yorke has named his son. Radiohead's mission has been to warn of the flood that is imminent and here again there are all kinds of alarm bells trying to grab your attention as "jaws of hell" prepared to welcome you. 2 + 2 = 5 begins with dreamers putting the world to rights and the warning that:

It's the devils way now
There is no way out
You can scream and you
Can shout
It is too late now
Because
You have not being paying attention

Maybe one of the weaknesses of Radiohead's warning is their seeming lack of alternatives. Once we waken up what are we to do to turn it around? In "I Will" he again is looking to save the children so he lies down in an underground bunker. Though there is a claim to rise up; to what? Is the ark the only way? Let the world drown and we'll make our escape; where are the rainbows? Now that would be an interesting album boys!