Their instrumentation is not ostentatious, but rather exceedingly precise, engineered. Let Down, my favorite song off OK Computer, begins by hinting quietly at different musical elements, letting them build up just enough to catch your ear and then reigning them in before you can truly be satisfied. When I was discussing Radiohead recently with a friend of mine, he remarked that their music seemed too polished, that it felt like they were too good at what they do.
It feels inorganic, because it is. It is entirely engineered and controlled, down to the very last detail. The natural world has become a world of machines, and the serendipity of human connection is in danger. The more you listen to them, the more you realize that they are trapped within their own musical experience.
They are no longer sure what exactly is real, and they are stuck in a space of perpetual introspection. He talks in maths, but they do, too. They are chart-topping because they are relatable in much the same way Radiohead is, albeit more explicitly. They sing about the modern experience of simultaneous loss of self and intense self-awareness. They sing about the inability to connect with other people. They fuse genres, transitioning sometimes into rap and sometimes into rock, navigating both with expertly engineered direction.
It is the antithesis of messily vivacious rock. It is fundamentally clinical. In a way, I was right. Rock music is dead. Or, more accurately, classic rock is dead. Last song on the album. I took another breath and knocked.
I could hear footsteps, and my heart felt like a stone in my mouth. A shadow could be made out through the rippled dark glass at the top of the door. Dad and I, singing along to Just as the guitar got higher and higher, until we were both screaming.
Mum, shouting at us to keep it down. The three of us, at dinner, on holidays, going for day trips up north. Tara and Jake and I, hours spent in the park with the sun high above. Covering Radiohead songs with my band, trying to copy their style when we wrote originals. Science class, my friends and I, discussing our futures. Could I still have all of that, and also believe what was about to happen?
Did I want this to happen? Why did I get on a bus and come all the way here? Are these people anything to me at all? Did I want them to be? The man had brown hair, tanned skin, brown eyes. His jaw was square like mine, his nose like mine in shape. I paused. A reason? The truth? My foot hovered, not quite willing to take a step in any direction. Was I reading too much into him? Originally from Auckland born next to Cornwall Park , she has spent the last year using art to draw together the pieces of her identity.
In her spare time, she drinks kombucha and gin and experiments with photography. Find her on Instagram: acrylix You must be logged in to post a comment. Reading Radiohead. Radiohead By Indianna Cosgriff. Fiction Summer short stories. We need to talk about something. Outside, the countryside whipped past, the rolling hills specked with sheep. And then the door opened. A man stood in front of me. He was looking at me curiously. A little too closely. I failed ultimately, which was rather sad.
So what is my verdict? The answer to this, sadly but quite appropriately so, cannot be diminished to a mere yes-no dilemma. I kid you not, as my editor can testify. In these 37 hours and counting , I have attempted, to the best of my auditory abilities, to listen, re-listen, re-listen yet again, dissect, cross-check with the preexisting Radiohead catalogue, speed the tune up or slow it down, and in a particularly daring but futile endeavor, to recreate an entire song on the piano by ear.
This just all goes to show one thing — there is simply so damn much going on in this album. However, like the album, the songs themselves are also difficult to be discussed within their respective vacuums. There is a very apparent sense of urgency here, or arguably even fear, augmented by the thick wall of reverb. The orchestral breakdown into a giant pair of gnashing teeth towards the end is perhaps not the most pleasant sound to sleep to — perhaps it seeks to mimic the fate of those burnt at the stake for practicing witchcraft?
It certainly sounds so, for it is, genuinely, quite terrifying. This song sounds like a mess but only initially so. Minor piano arpeggios, wispy vocal samples repeated over and over, and the dissonant strings all culminate in a rather spooky ending, where a mechanically rumbling voice repeats an unintelligible phrase over and over.
And if you watch the music video, ripe with beautifully sourced locations, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the feeling of isolation and melancholy further intensifies, for it depicts an emotionless Yorke wandering aimlessly through various houses, malls, streets, and finally curling himself up in a fetal position in a snowy cave.
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