Quote: "Eventually, at some point, you finally "get" ALL their work."
So, so true. And they're only one of maybe two or three bands in the world like that. Their music has the equivalent of easter eggs, sort of like a video game. And every time you listen to an album, one leaps out at you. A really famous example of one, the line "It's gonna be a glorious day, I feel my luck could change" in the song "Lucky" on the album OK Computer. There's so much going on in the song that when he slaps you in the face with a vocal hammer, you might not notice it the first time you hear the song. And Kid A is absolutely RIDDLED with them... you can listen to that album a few dozen times without catching everything.
But they aren't for everyone... some people like their music more "straight-forward," and don't care to observe every note. It's quite common to find philharmonics performing Radiohead's music alongside classical works, like
these people, performing Radiohead, Ravel, and Beethoven in the same show. You won't find any philharmonics performing System of a Down or 50-Cent, because they write music instead of
composing it. I remember a reviewer once saying (sic) "The only thing I don't like about Radiohead is that it takes 20+ hours to listen to their albums."
If you only take them at face value, or listen to one single song and base your opinion on that, you're missing the boat entirely. OK Computer, Kid A, and In Rainbows shouldn't be listened to one song at a time... you have to listen to the full album to truly appreciate its perfection. But again, some people just aren't into music as art, and prefer music as entertainment. But if you really listen to it, it'll take you through the full range of possible emotions. They're the only band in the world, that I know of, that can make a listener wish they had their security blanket from their early childhood to protect them from the world's evils. And unlike some bands and artists that try to be cool in that sense, by appearing "evil" or whatever, Radiohead aren't actually trying... just composing. No on-stage personas with face paint or piles of headless bat corpses at the base of the microphone stand to achieve that effect. Just an arsenal of homemade instruments and a whole heck of a lot of talent, courage, and chemistry.
At the end of the day, the reason this album is getting so much attention from the media at large is because every time Radiohead releases a new album, the media claims it's going to "save rock music" from itself; Save music fans from the dreaded intellectual drought produced by bands and artists like Yellowcard and Britney Spears, bands that sound exactly the same live as they do on their CD, have no "message," and play to the record executive's every whim. Radiohead is one of the few popular groups in the world, like Beck and Pearl Jam and U2, that retain full 100% artistic control over their albums and can't be told what to do, so they're expected to make music good again. And with some of the most highly acclaimed albums in the history of recorded music, like OK Computer, which literally *is* the most highly acclaimed album in history, the media really lays the pressure on them to act as saviors. That's why Radiohead almost breaks up every time they put out a new album. I want the media to just shut up and let us enjoy their music this time around. If Britney Spears releases a new CD in a few months, who cares? And why should it fall in Radiohead's lap to somehow "stop" that from happening?
