Since I’m a music blog, I’m contractually obligated to tell you Radiohead released an album on Friday called “The King of the Limbs”. Honestly, I find it a bit unchill how their album celebrates a guy who sells severed limbs to hospitals, but that’s a whole other argument altogether. I got the album, listened to it, and realized I’m on the wrong side of 20 for this kind of music.
Radiohead exploits the gray zone between pop and experimental, without being satisfying in either respect. I used to like Radiohead as a teenager, lapping up “Ok Computer” and “Kid A”. While I still enjoy both those albums, I don’t have the same level of fondness I used to have. Rather, as I listen to Thom Yorke’s incessant whining, I wonder was I this insufferable as a teenager? Was I really this angst-ridden, over a situation which didn’t merit such a dark response? Oh boo-hoo, I grew up in a suburb where I didn’t belong. My life was so hard.
If you’re under the age of 20, this kind of stuff should resonate. You ought to be able to connect with Thom Yorke’s opaque lyrics talking about his poor suffering life:
“Oh poor me, I’m worth several hundred million dollars. I sell albums to kids who think they have actual problems. People generally find me weird and allow me to do crazy spastic dances under the pretense of ‘art’. Everybody has to like my albums or suffer the consequences of being ostracized as a ‘snob’ or ‘idiot’.”
Kids I’m certain sit in the back of the bus, connecting with this on some level. I know I did. They’re sad they live in a smaller split level than their friends. Wearing that Radiohead sharp-toothed teddy bear patch, they feel the false discomfort Thom expresses. Life is hard when you live at home in an upper-middle class suburb and are fully financially supported by your parents.
What bothers me most is how Radiohead seems to have coasted most of this decade. Considering the ever-decreasing quality of their product, you’d think someone might be willing to tell them to be a bit more ambitious in their undertakings. Simply using a different marketing ploy isn’t the same as producing a product on par with their late 90s stuff. Now they have some sort of critical tenure.
Critical reception is guaranteed to be warm. Pitchfork has a grading system specifically for the band, grading on a scale from 9.0 to 10.0, rather than something more in line with the actual item itself. Those who do offer constructive criticism (like the Needle Drop, kudos to you good sir) are attacked by a rabid, internet-dwelling fan base. Indeed, their fan base is so dedicated I wonder whether or not it ought to count as a cult. Probably the fact its fan base tends to be so articulate adds to their aurora.
“Oh, we can’t be bad, look at all the colorful adjectives and references people use when writing about how great we are.” –Thom Yorke
Personally, I don’t like what’s happening. Radiohead is becoming a ‘dinosaur act’ where they only need to occasionally come out with a product every couple years. No matter how far they’ve fallen, they are graded on a curve since they are Radiohead. I’m upset because I don’t want such a thing to happen, because I think they were good, can still be good and simply fell into a rut where they could produce a product with a near-guarantee people will purchase it. Rather than saying ‘Radiohead is stupid. I never listened to them.’ I did actually listen to them, hence why I have so much concern for where they are going (or not going in their case).
Each one of Radiohead’s post OK Computer or Kid A offered me enough to latch onto, whether it was “Knives Out” from Amnesiac, “A Punchup at a Wedding” from Hail to the Thief, or “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” from In Rainbows. Here, I can’t find anything which encourages me to continue following them. Maybe this is where I finally leave them for good, unable to find any bright spots alluding to a bright future as a band. My friends feel differently of course.
Reading my friends’ Facebook walls for this, I worry. All of them appear to be too old for this kind of moping. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is good. Having listened to it, I don’t see any evidence of quality. Instead, they just took some songs from random sessions, said “Hey, that doesn’t sound totally half-assed, let’s release that” and they did it. Thom Yorke did a spastic dance for a music video and they’re done.
How someone after the age of 20 finding meaning in this worries me. Sure, this works wonders as you brood by yourself in your youth, but I thought people were supposed to grow out of this feeling. As I grow older, Radiohead doesn’t. It stays in the same mood, same age, covering the same territory, constantly disappointed by some unspeakable, unknowable force. I wanted them to grow old with me, to mature into constantly new sounds.
Radiohead needs to grow up. I did.