Let’s just tackle these two together.
I should have went running for the hills after listening to Pablo
Honey in 1993. The singer sounded too much like Jeff Buckley (R.I.P., but I wasn't a fan. Sorry.), and the album was named after a Jerky Boys reference.
But NO! I had to fall in love with the stupid single “Creep,” and then “Stop
Whispering,” and “Anyone Can Play Guitar.” Gee whiz! Was “Anyone Can Play
Guitar” a sign of things to come or what? They told us flat out on the first
album, “guitars are for jerks, and after we melt your face with ours, we’re
going to flush them down the toilet!” Just listen to the song!
There’s a great story about “Anyone Can Play Guitar.” The
opening mishmash of noise that opens and closes the song is a collage of
everyone in the recording studio, from the cook to the janitor to the entire
band, rocking out on a guitar. Whether they knew how to play it was irrelevant.
This is also completed unrelated to anything I'm talking about, but I noticed a little R.E.M. influence I never picked up on before listening to the album again, especially on “Vegetable” and “Lurgee.”
The three albums I’m listening to this day are the perfect
arc to track my frustration with this band! With Pablo Honey came a promise of
excellence to come, and OK Computer delivered on that solemn oath. There was
something in Pablo that just said “we’re not fucking going anywhere.” Sure, The
Bends proved that, but OK Computer is the kind of album that pulls chunks of
albums like The Bends out of its stool.
When OK Computer was coming out, Capitol Records, super
glued cassettes of the album into Walkmans and mailed those to radio stations,
so that radio people could hear the album but not play it before its release
date. Man, I miss the days record labels had piles of cash and just pissed
millions away on bullshit. I still have my super glued Walkman somewhere.
Radiohead had evolved passed anybody’s expectations of what
Rock N’ Roll could sound like with OK Computer. I vaguely remember lots of Pink
Floyd comparisons to this album, which really pissed me off. This album was the
future. It was about the future. It looked like the future. It sounded like the future! I can’t find the
words to describe the level of brilliance it achieved or the amounts of joy
it has brought me. It’s an epic accomplishment.
It should also be noted that Thom Yorke was a miserable
fucking prick around the time of this album. Just a horrible person. I equate
the decline in the band’s style and music directly with the increase in his
happiness. He’s too fucking full of life now.
This is the classic case of, “my favorite band is moving in
a different direction that I don’t like and I’m going to be a little bitch
about it.”
Let’s face it, since In Rainbows, Radiohead is not the same
band that wrote and recorded “Electioneering.”
Believe me, I know I sound like a dick when I bag on them constantly,
but it’s frustrating to listen to an album or EP or whatever this is and think “what
are they doing? Are they having a laugh? Is this it now?” What’s even more frustrating
is the blind devotion from the asswipes that lapped this up. It gives me pause.
Is this the Emperor’s New Clothes? Or am I just really missing something?
I expect nothing but brilliance from this band, and they’re
pissing it away for jammy/techno/doodles! Blips and beeps with some clicking! Am I wrong?
When this album came out, I compared it to the scene in
Strange Brew: The Adventures Of Bob & Doug McKenzie when Bob put the
computer disc on the turntable and tried to listen to it like it was a record. “I
liken this album from Radiohead,” I said. “To something a guy from Canada
pulled out of his underpants, listened to for two seconds and then gave to his
dog.” British New Wave band, indeed!
The video for “Lotus Flower” didn't help this album’s cause
one bit. “Oh, Thom Yorke’s dancing like a epileptic cunt on Ecstasy at a one man
rave? Sign me up!” (Sorry about the C-bomb. I just really wanted to drive that
point home.)
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| I love skinny jeans and "seizure" dancing! |
What the fuck are you supposed to do with a “song” like “Feral?”
Play it in front of 7-11? So teenagers don’t loiter around? Torture terrorists
with it? Use it to disburse a riot? Imagine the amount of talent that was
wasted to create a turd like this. Everyone involved would have better served
the world, if instead of making this track, they grabbed some sticks with nails
on the end and cleaned up a local park, or pierced their eardrums.
The only song that spoke to me while I listened to this was “Morning
Mr. Magpie.” I literally felt like the line, “You got some nerve, coming here”
was directed right at me. It's like the line in Jimmy Eat World's song "A Praise Chorus," "I wanna always feel like part of this was mine." Now, I feel like an outsider listening to Radiohead and that doesn't sit well with me. That's why I sound like such a dick and get all bent out of shape!
Tomorrow I listen to The Lemonheads, Spiritualized, and The Cribs.
Here's the entire March Playlist!
Agree 100%. And oddly enough just after I finished reading this, a particularly bad Glee performance of Creep came on my TV. Spooky.
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