I can remember hearing Radiohead early in my teenage years. I can’t remember if it was late 1992 or 1993 when I first heard “Creep” off their album Pablo Honey, but I remember immediately taking to it. I liked the song for the sound (peaceful lows to a grungy highs) and the lyrics (teenage alienation seemed to run high for awkward teenagers at the time), though I wasn’t totally fond of Thom Yorke’s voice. I only really knew “Creep” until my brother grabbed the single for “High and Dry”, which I loved immediately. “High and Dry” was to me significantly different from “Creep”; it had acoustic guitars and softer vocals from Yorke. Subsequently we got The Bends (1995), and at the time I didn’t realize that I was listening to the evolution of the band.
The Bends was the first record that really garnered the band critical success (and commercial success in their native England, which had eluded them before), and subsequently all their albums have received critical praise for Yorke’s lyrics and the band’s music. There was OK Computer (1997), which is considered a classic record that has been on many, many lists for all-time best albums. Then there was the duo of Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001, which contains one of my favorite songs of theirs, “The Pyramid Song”), which expanded even further into sounds and genres that were explored on OK Computer and The Bends. Hail to the Thief, which will be the subject of this entry, followed the success of Amnesiac, which was then followed by In Rainbows (2007) and The King of Limbs (2011). As a band their sound and lyrics have evolved to promote different styles and the melding of those styles. Radiohead album releases continue to be an event, as they have also changed the way they release their records.
# 167 – Radiohead, Hail to the Thief (Metascore = 85)
Hail to the Thief is several things. The album is a topical album, covering different social, political, and personal events within and outside of the band’s inner circle. Having heard the record a couple of times, there are definitely some political undertones to the record, and rightfully there should be. The album was recorded when the War on Terror had just begun after the tragic events of September 11th, 2001. Yorke also felt compelled to write more lyrics that spoke out against injustices that could affect the lives of future generations after having kids and thinking about the future they would live in.
The opener, “2+2=5 (The Lukewarm.)”, showcases this stripped down approach the band took when recording the album, though it doesn’t totally shy away from some of the sounds they had used. There are still electronic elements in the sound, but unlike the previous few records the guitars are showcased a little more. The frantic pace of the music helps the frantic pace of the lyrics, in which Yorke opines on the public’s loss of freedoms that are being taken by an authoritarian government. “Sit Down Stand Up”, unlike “2+2=5”, has more electronic elements to it and is a more direct political statement (“We can wipe you out anytime”).
Throughout the record there is this stripped down/souped up sound that occurs. To me this is the constant pull of wanting to stay modern while trying to embrace the music that inspired them in the first place. In “A Punchup at a Wedding” Thom Yorke sounds like Neil Young both lyrically and vocally; Young was someone he and the other members were listening to quite a bit during that period. The song is also very “old school” for them, with few electronic elements to it. Some songs such as “Sail to the Moon” or “There There” contain few electronic beats, whereas songs like “Backdrifts” contain heavy doses of electronic beats and effects. This alternation creates hypnotic effects at times and alert effects at other times.
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