Radiohead have without doubt released the most talked about album in many a long year. Everyone has an opinion and it is mostly that everybody is confused. On first listen, most people say "crap" apart from those who have decided that they are going to say the emperor's clothes are lovely, to be trendy and cool. It is on the second and third listen that the confusion kicks in. A few listens in and it doesn't seem to be as harsh as on first exposure apart from the very harsh, sharp and mostly unpleasant Idioteque.
But is the confusion, reason kicking in and saying, "These guys are maybe the best band of the 90's and surely they wouldn't bring out this drivel. So it must be good." That allows us to mine deeper than we would had anyone brought out such an electronic sea of sound. Probably.
There are a couple or three songs that would maybe have sat nicely in the middle of the orthodox follow up to OK Computer. "Everything In Its Right Place" is actually the best we got here and "How To Disappear Completely" with its whispers of that old belief in guitars would have been better had they had a better team around them. "The National Anthem" with its bass intro promises much but fails to deliver anything but... the intro.
Maybe it is a good album to have on as you check your email. Interesting background music to a cyberspace age but in fairness it is no classic. The intrigue has made it my most listened too CD in a sea of new album releases but I reckon that by the time U2 appears Kid A will be on my shelf never to be brought out again. At least when U2 did their self indulgent soundtrack album they told us that it was going to be confusing and less satisfying than the real thing by naming themselves The Passengers.
So I'm on the dissatisfied side of confused. I reckon there are no clothes on this emperor and a real Radiohead album is needed, as is rumored, in the spring.
2.5 tocks
Other coverage for this album
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