Radiohead

I had heard of Radiohead before that. They had a big early “alternative” hit called Creep that got a lot of airplay, and their second album, The Bends, had been building up a huge fan base thanks to their year of touring behind it. The buzz was big, but, in the peculiar algebra that is my musical taste, that just made me more and more resistant. That’s the elitist snob in me, to be sure. Since most people are fucking idiots, the “reasoning” goes, then the more people that like something, the worse it must actually be (popularity being inversely proportionate to quality). So even though the hype was unmistakable, I resisted mightily. But since Patrick had gone to the trouble of buying me a copy of their new CD, I should at least have the decency to listen to it a couple of times before dismissing it outright.

As often happens with things I end up loving, I was particularly unmoved on the first listen. And the second and the third. And then something clicked and I found myself getting drawn in to their heavily textured sound. With three gifted guitarists at their disposal (a la The Cars), they could spin out an astonishing array of sounds, yet they were very careful not to let the sound get muddied. And there was something in Radiohead that I hadn’t heard much of lately, some real emotion. A lot of the ‘80s music was about being coolly detached (enthusiasm is so gauche), and although there was a lot of screaming going on in the grunge movement, in the ‘90s, there was very little actual emotionality. Sure, Kurt Cobain was pissed off, and he set the fires that burned in lots of Seattle bands, but pissed-off isn’t a very rich emotional context to explore and it also doesn’t exactly invite you in. Which isn’t to say that it’s not easy to get swept up in shared rage and frustration, but it’s a very external emotion, aimed outward. Radiohead’s vocalist, Thom Yorke, didn’t seem to fear confessionalism and introspection. And the band, in an astonishing revelation, actually made beautiful music. Some of the melodies and arrangements on OK Computer are absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. Most of the music that was popular around that time reveled in its ugliness. Ugly music for an ugly world. But Radiohead wasn’t afraid to construct these gorgeous musical tapestries and decorate them with heartfelt lyrics of alienation and loneliness. Their arrangements, while still capable of packing a serious punch, were often delicate and ethereal.

This album, OK Computer, was the pinnacle of Radiohead’s recorded output (so far, anyway). It was right when the band was their tightest, when they were experimenting with different kinds of song formats, but hadn’t gone so far out that they lost their way (as they would on their subsequent albums, Kid A and Amnesiac). OK Computer was also the first album in a long time that was actually meant to be viewed as an album. It had a few relatively minor hits, but the package worked well as an entire album, all the songs fitting together to create a synergistic whole. Recording an album as more than a collection of songs is something the Beatles are credited with starting with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, and it was a popular gambit for progressive bands of the ‘70s, but it had fallen out of favor. Although the songs on OK Computer are about different subjects and the mood changes are many and all the songs stand as separate musical moments, there’s something about the overall texture and sequence that makes it feel like a whole album. Or half an album anyway. The first six songs are flawless – soaring, beautiful, without peer. Then there’s the Fitter Happier poem in which a computerized voice reads disconnected phrases of alienation and awkwardness while eerie sounds bounce around. Entertaining a couple of times, and then forever irritating. After that, the album kind of falls apart for me. But those first six songs are priceless. They include the epic, multi-part Paranoid Android, the hushed Morricone-inspired Exit Music for a Film (which is exactly what it sounds like), the astonishingly gorgeous Subterranean Homesick Alien, and the first song to really catch my ear that summer, Karma Police. Although I really like the whole song, there’s a moment when it explodes and Thom Yorke’s voice soars above all saying “for a minute there I lost myself” that paralyzes me with ecstasy. Looking around at the situation in which I found myself, it’s easy to see why the plaintive cry that I had lost myself seemed so compelling. Teetering on the verge of having a family, trying to get my career heading in some recognizable direction, working all day every day for idiots (and for peanuts), I was in danger of losing myself entirely, so I wrapped myself in the comforting alienation of Radiohead.

OK Computer was, at this writing, the halfway point of their career. And it was about the halfway point of Thom Yorke’s lyrical obtuseness. His first hit, Creep, was a chillingly accurate and easily understandable account of an awkward outsider. As the band got more and more popular, Yorke retreated further and further into his lyrical cocoon. OK Computer is about half understandable, and then he just plunges into incoherence on the next album– although the kind of carefully constructed nonsense that seems like it’s about something and has obsessive fans poring over his lyrics, finding hidden meanings that only reveal their inner life and not Thom Yorke’s. The band seemed only too happy to follow him into the underbrush and disappear entirely from the path of coherence.

Intrigued by OK Computer, I sought out their earlier releases, and found that, song for song, I like The Bends better. Their first album, Pablo Honey, is relatively weak, and has the band stumbling around, trying to find their niche. By The Bends, they had settled into a groove, and the songs are tight and infectious. Emotional, but with a gigantic, stadium-filling sound, it’s no wonder that it found such favor. The songs are better, but it, like most albums, it is accidental – that is, it’s a collection of songs instead of a unified album (there’s some debate among my friends as to whether unified is preceded by “a” or “an” – I maintain that, strictly speaking, it should be preceded by “an”, like “an unusual situation,” but even I must confess that “an unified album” sounds hopelessly awkward, so I’m abandoning my principles and sticking with “a”).

Radiohead also joins the swelling ranks of bands who put “head” in their band name, joining such illustrious brethren as Talking Heads, Severed Heads, Tackhead, Shinehead, Teenage Head, Pailhead, Buckethead, African Head Charge, Machine Head, Bushy Head, Medicine Head, Animal Head, Edith Head, Ultra Head, Heavy on the Head, Diamond Head, Stupid Dummy Head, and Big Head Todd & the Monsters, to name but a few.