“Will someone turn down the Pink Floyd?”
It’s New Year’s resolution time. Last year’s resolution, to get hooked on coffee, was a runaway success to the degree that I’ve quit coffee for a week to see if I’ll sleep better (early reports: yes). The first helper in the process was the Bodum travel French press I bought from Amazon for like $12. Once I got to Paris, however, it was the unlimited access to a Lavazza machine that did me in. I was probably drinking about 6 espressos a day.
The year before, my resolution was to get hooked on cigarettes. I’m ambivalent about saying that it was a complete failure of a resolution.
For 2010, however, nothing really jumped out at me. There’s an informal hiatus on Kinder chocolates, but that’s not really a resolution; that’s just discipline. So I decided that this year, I’ll finally figure out what the hubub is over Radiohead.
It’s not that I’ve like never heard Radiohead. I listened to “Creep” on the radio like everyone. And I was working for an A&E section of a (college) newspaper when OK Computer came out, causing pretty much the whole editorial staff to blow up their heads. That album was, in fact, the only album ripped to the Sports Editor’s computer, and every production night we’d hear it over and over and over (and over). From my chair in the production office, it sounded like Pink Floyd. I suspect that it will sound like Pink Floyd from up close, too. In short, I’ve followed the band’s career. Hell, I even downloaded In Rainbows, since it was free.
But it never clicked. In the meantime, my friends are all rushing to see Radiohead in concert, going on about innovative this and genre-destroying that. Yet what I heard, musically, left me inert. But I had a long conversation about Radiohead last week, where my friend Ed explained why he liked them so much. And I just ran into my neighbor here, whom I’ve heard blasting parts of OK Computer from time to time. So I figure, you know what? Let’s see what it’s all about.
I’m probably not going to blog the adventure or anything, but I want it out there. When you see me (in Vilnius, probably) for new year’s next year, you can talk to me all you want about Kid A. Of course, if I hate it, I’ll also be able to explain why.
Tags: coffee, Paris, radiohead, resolutions
January 10th, 2010 at 9:34
I think you have me confused with Kevin.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:38
You’re confusing yourself with Sid.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:06
Happens all the time.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:13
Usually after I miss the last ferry. I just drive back up to Mattapoisett and start banging on doors.
January 10th, 2010 at 19:36
Pablo Honey = whatever + Creep
The Bends = really fine, melodic, if occasionally conventional britpop, holds up well
OK Computer = basically too overplayed at this point to be redeemable, tho Selway’s drumming on Airbag remains one of my favorite drum tracks (somewhere right behind Prince’s Lady Cab Driver)
Kid A & Amnesiac = basically ripped of Aphex Twin’s Richard D. James album and added hooks, tho the track with the New Orleans dirge worked into it remains pretty brilliant; nonetheless, the band’s best live era, cashing in on the tail end of the 90s raver thing (Live in Salamanca’s a good bootleg)
Hail to the Thief = they go back to writing something like conventional songs, tho they’ve sadly forever lost anything like a live-band dynamic.
In Rainbows = decent Side A, one really good song (bodysnatchers), or at least it would be if the riff weren’t stolen from that My Morning Jacket track where MMJ’s trying to sound like Radiohead; side B Thom’s indulging his love of wimpy, soupy-melodied electronica
While you’re at it, tho, check out The Darkness’s devastatingly awesome cover of Street Spirit