Yes folks, Radiohead are back with their latest, as of now, untitled ninth album. After a five year long absence which has seen Coldplay release three albums, the Marvel cinematic universe finish it's first and second phases and inexplicably; this once rarely read opinion piece blog mostly focus on rarely read music reviews.
Excited is not the word. If you follow my Twitter, the past week has either been the moment the mute button has ranked up there with the wheel as the greatest invention of our species or reading the typical ramblings of someone who is just your typical Radiohead fan; where today is Christmas, peace on Earth and a stiff shot of your mum rolled into one.
Naturally, a Worst to Best list on Radiohead's current eight albums is in order, along with my feeble opinions on why.
8) Pablo Honey
Oh look, Radiohead's retrospectively adequate debut placed last, oh how original barked no one.
Ok, it's easy to mock Pablo Honey (or as many call it, Creep and the others) as the album has minimal stylistics traits which would carry on over to their later and far better albums.
Taking a cue from the early nineties grunge phase, Radiohead's debut is a loud, angry paper tiger, with it's major fault being how much it sounds like it's contemporaries.
Sure, Yorke's falsetto is given a chance to shine and Jonny Greenwood's touches are there, but compared to the rest of their catalogue, Pablo Honey serves as a benchmark for a band that would quickly escalate into something better (with a pit stop into something much worse with standalone bridging single Pop is Dead).
There are highlights; Creep is still one of the best rock songs ever. Ruined by it's own success with the band frequently playings gigs, only to see crowds leave once it was played. Anyone Can Play Guitar is typical indie filler saved by infectious riffs and closer Blow Out serves as a notable transition between the then and what would shortly follow as an underrated classic.
Whilst not a bad album in the slightest, in the vast discography of the band, Pablo Honey is a weak album, a product of it's times and a band that never seemed comfortable with it's skin, one that it would shed in two years.
7) Hail to the Thief
Whilst Hail to the Thief can be viewed as a conglomerate of their previously two, radically different albums along with the alternative rock which cemented their legacy, it also has a major fault which overrides the sense of reassuring familiarity; in that it feels too long.
At just shy of an hour, the fourteen tracks constantly clash in styles for genre supremacy but only rarely top their previous efforts. Of course you have There There which nearly matches Paranoid Android in terms of epicness and scope. A Wolf at the Door sees Yorke rap and somehow not falter, with a mishmash of lyrics lost on first listen. The Orwellian nightmare 2+2=5 is a great opener but doesn't set the uneven tone of the album.
The electronic tracks, whilst not as revolutionary as those on Kid A or Amnesiac are definitely underrated. Myxomatosis is lead with a thick and catchy bass from Colin Greenwood whilst Sit Down. Stand Up goes from haunting synths to acid house with the catchy outro hook of "The rain drops".
But as mentioned before, Hail to the Thief drags out it's stay. Had it been ten tracks, I (and possibly others) would rate it much higher (although I disagree with Yorke's own selection as I can't stand The Gloaming), but in it's original form, whilst it's parts are strong, the sum simply isn't.
6) Kid A
Things get complicated from here. The band, having became the biggest in the world, hit rock bottom. Writer's block, boredom with rock, bad gigs, alienation, you name it, it probably happened.
I'm not one of those people who hated the band's new direction and drifted towards their newly sprung contemporaries (simply because I first listened to the band a year after Hail to the Thief's release). Whilst many never looked back, others will say Kid A is the band's best album as a dark, brooding piece with sparse instruments and fragmented melodies.
For the most part, I agree. Opener Everything In It's Right Place is simple but nearly perfect. Idioteque is the scattered breakdown the album desperately needs in the second half. How to Disappear Completely is one of the most beautiful songs ever which encapsulates the band's three year journey to this point.
But there are faults; the title track is a shell of it's live version with unsingable, incomprehensible lyrics. Instrumental Treefingers, whilst a tone setter, is quite generic and offers a breather just after the aforementioned How to Disappear Completely. In Limbo, whilst mercifully short, is nothing more than b-side, especially with what was showcased as actual b-side's in the coming year.
Ultimately; whilst the strong parts of some of the absolute best the band has ever made, it's weakest moments make you question why certain songs are here and others like Fog, Cuttooth and The Amazing Sounds of Orgy were left off.
A great album, but not perfect.
5) Amnesiac
Although both Kid A and Amnesiac were originally conceived as a double album (possibly Kid Amnesiac...if you will) and ended up being released with a sparse year between them, Amnesiac is my favourite of the pair, with reasons as followed:
The album's feels richer with more actual instrumentation than Kid A. Sure, it's still experimental as failures like Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors and successes like Like Spinning Plates showcase, but tracks like Pyramid Song, The Smiths influenced Knives Out and the simple but stunning You and Whose Army? would never fit the tone of isolation on Kid A, but here, they sound grand.
Whilst Yorke's lyrics have never really recovered from his writer's block prior to Kid A and trying to instrumentalise his vocals; the great ones are just as memorable and catchy, like Knives Out, discussing the benefits of cannibalism and Pyramid Song's vivid details on a potential afterlife.
Whilst Kid A had patchy moments, Anmesiac's only real downside is Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors and even that is at the start and short enough to not ruin the entire album. Had one of the session's b-sides replaced it, Amnesiac would be near-perfect, but otherwise, is a superb album.
4) The King of Limbs
The King of Limbs holds a special place as one of the most rewarding albums ever released. As said in my first music review on the site (look at my youthful optimism and adjectives!), upon first listen, the album lacked punch and was over far too quickly.
The unusual mishmash of bird songs and schizophrenic sampling sound like it could work like together peanut butter and granite, but upon multiple replays and years later, it begins to slowly sink in.
Opener Bloom combines uneasy layers of drums and dramatic flare to set the tone of the record. I still rank Lotus Flower as one of the band's absolute best (even without the meme music video), Codex, the sequel you never knew you wanted to Pyramid Song but now can't be without.
Whilst it's criminally short and a shame that Staircase and Supercollider didn't make the cut or weren't finished in time, The King of Limbs, whilst the most experimental the band has ever released, is one of their finest.
Even better is the From the Basement sessions which showcases the songs live where they really come into their own. Had these versions been released on the actual album, I think more listeners would rank the album higher.
3) The Bends
Whilst the stereotype of the difficult second album has been around since music was recordable, Radiohead completely demolished that notion with The Bends.
Often seen as the gateway to the band's discography and superior in every way to Pablo Honey, nearly everything here is spot on. Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien's guitar skills are here in full, with classics like Just, the title track and My Iron Lung serving as indie rock classics.
The slower songs are some of the band's most beautiful. Whilst the band despise High and Dry much to my chagrin, Fake Plastic Trees is simply stunning and is on a completely different level from anything before it. The album's haunting closer Street Spirit (Fade Out) is perfect for the album, with vivid and dark lyrics combined with a hopeful closeout of "Immerse your soul in love".
Even twenty years later, it still sounds as fresh and refined as anything released today and began a truly great run for the band.
2) In Rainbows
Most people seem to forget that prior to it's launch, In Rainbows' gimmick was the band let you pay what you want...or like most fans, you bought the deluxe version for £40 because of the extra tracks.
The reason people forget this is just how memorable and surprisingly great the album was. After Hail to the Thief failed to continue the band's steady releases of quality music, In Rainbows was a major return to form and return to their routes in alternate rock, with some dips back to electronica.
The intense Bodysnatchers sees the band lose their minds in four minutes of guitar goodness, Jigsaw Falling into Place is a natural progression from The Bends as what is a simple song, but somehow complicated and fresh. Fan favourite Nude finally sees official release as a stripped back string arranged pop classic with some of Yorke's best vocals and Colin Greenwood's excellent bass.
The only duff moment of the album is, in my opinion, House of Cards. Whilst with interesting lyrics on wife swapping, it's three minute filler stretched into a five minute trudge which stalls the album's second half. I never understood why Up on the Ladder never replaced it as it does everything House of Cards does but so much better.
On the whole, In Rainbows is a grand accomplishment and one of that decade's best albums, but only one album from the band tops it and of course it's
1) OK Computer
OK Computer is, to many, the definite alternate rock album. It arguably killed the bloated, fatigued state of britpop and caused every record label to desperately find a band that plays guitars and has a lead singer that sings in falsetto.
It's influence is still felt today and, whilst deep down I will be surprised if anything ever tops it from the band, it's the benchmark from which all Radiohead albums are judged, even if that's incredibly unfair.
Whilst Airbag preludes what the band would become in three years, Paranoid Android truly sets the tone. A conglomeration of Pixies, The Beatles and Queen, it should crash and burn, but the song is a classic from start to finish.
My favourite ever Radiohead song Let Down is near the middle and I still remember one day, walking home from my first job, seeing the deserted streets, the odd beam of headlights, the backing sound of tires screeching beneath the music, how isolated everything could be and how Let Down set the tone.
Then of course you follow that up with Karma Police which, even twenty years later, is another definitive classic from the band that even non-fans will know and like.
The spectacle and awe of the album is just in another realm. The sound is so rich, the vocals inch perfect and unlike any of the other albums, there's no duff moments. It's weakest track being a computerised spoken word piece.
The tone of the album which, as a whole, looks at social isolation, left leaning criticisms of the free world and, whilst written in the nineties, how utterly hopeless and terrifying the modern world will become with advances in technology. It's perhaps more relevant today with the advent of social media and new degrees of greed in the free market.
I only rank a small handful of albums as perfect, but OK Computer truly is. Utterly magnificent from beginning to end and, in my humble opinion, the little band from Oxfordshire's definitive album.
H
@Retcon_Nation
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