My college roommate Ben Graef turned me on to Radiohead during my days at the 'Po, and I've been on the hook ever since. The first piece of theirs I was exposed to was this music video (bless you, glorious YouTube!), for their song "Just", from their brilliant '95 album, The Bends. If you've never seen it, watch it now. For my money, it's a perfect music video, in the way it embraces the kick-ass song (and the fiercest guitar solo in music, I think) and creates such a quietly disturbing story around it. If you end up mildly obsessed with it like I am, check out the slightly re-tooled 'narrative cut', without the scenes of Radiohead rocking out in the room above the street. It plays a touch more like a short film, and is no less great.
Adding to their general awesomeness, the band won't say what the man tells the crowd at the end of the story (for the obvious reason that if they told you, you'd have to lie on the ground, too.) There's a nifty little Wikipedia page all about the song, though, with theories and whatnot. Though I personally think trying to 'figure it out' misses the point entirely - but I'll let you be the judge. Just don't blame me if you end up lying in the road tomorrow.
Anyway - today's New York Times has a really fantastic Arts feature about the band and their latest venture, releasing their new CD In Rainbows on the Internet first and allowing people who download it to pay what they want for it. Needless to say, there are plenty of people thrilled and plenty of people pissed off by this pretty audacious move. I, as you can imagine, think it's fantastic, and the millions of people who've downloaded it echo my sentiment. Will it be an industry standard? Doubtful - but it's still pretty awesome that they did it, and the fact that there's been such a terrific response indicates to me a rather unmistakable show of support for the band from their fan base, both in general and toward the quality of this CD.
Regarding the CD itself - I don't remember the last thing I've listened to as often as this one. Easily a few tracks daily, often finding new little snippets of melody or lyrical moments that I love. One of the many things I love about the band is how adaptable the songs can be to who you are - I realize the generality of that statement, as most music would want to achieve that) - but they do it SO well that it's rather mind blowing. People are terming this one of their more 'accessible' CDs, which isn't a wrong thing to say, though the terminology isn't my favorite. My personal top tracks are the opening "15 Step" and "The Bodysnatchers", which have distinct, definite rock pulses to them that make them a blast to walk to / work out to, and the gorgeously haunting piano and beat of "Videotape" that closes the CD.
I'm also partial to "All I Need", especially after reading in the Times article their idea behind creating it: "For “All I Need,” Mr. Greenwood said, he wanted to recapture the white noise generated by a band playing loudly in a room, when “all this chaos kicks up.” That sound never materializes in the more analytical confines of a studio. His solution was to have a string section, and his own overdubbed violas, sustaining every note of the scale, blanketing the frequencies."
Again, I'm being deliberately vague because I'd much rather you take the dive in, give them a download (you can certainly afford it) and come to your own conclusions about what, if anything, is going on 'behind' the songs. Musically, however, it's a little slice of genius that I can't get enough of. Click here for the In Rainbows page and bask in some quality Radiohead gold. If you end up wanting more (as I hope you do), check out Grant Gee's insanely cool documentary Meeting People Is Easy, which uses a whole bunch of mediums to chronicle a Radiohead world tour.
The official synopsis of the film is this:
"If you have been rejected many times in your life, then one more rejection isn't going to make much difference. If you're rejected, don't automatically assume it's your fault. The other person may have several reasons for not doing what you are asking her to do: none of it may have anything to do with you. Perhaps the person is busy or not feeling well or genuinely not interested in spending time with you. Rejections are part of everyday life. Don't let them bother you. Keep reaching out to others. When you begin to receive positive responses then you are on the right track. It's all a matter of numbers. Count the positive responses and forget about the rejections."
Clearly, not your typical DVD experience (nor should it be, nor would you want it to be, really, right?) - all the better for you to use the holidays as a reason to get it for the cool person you know who'll appreciate it.
Am off to go lie in the road a bit, perhaps. Just don't ask why.
Peace -
/jt
Comments