After work this evening I took my increasingly-ill credit card down to the Virgin Megastore and bought the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows. And, on first hearing, I didn't like it very much.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've come to realise that my relationship with Radiohead is becoming increasingly fraught. I thought The Bends was a mighty piece of work - tracks like `Bones' and `Nice Dream' are extraordinary things. I thought OK Computer was all right, and Kid A had some moments, but I don't listen to Hail To The Thief at all these days because I don't like it.
And I've come to the conclusion that Radiohead have outevolved me. I really liked them while they were still in transition between Pablo Honey (which I didn't enjoy) and OK Computer, but after that they just left me behind.
I think The Bends is a wonderful album, but I'm afraid Radiohead are vanishing into the distance ahead of me now and I may never catch up.
This is annoying me.
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 realthog |
| 2008-01-12 03:33 (UTC) |
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I took advantage of Radiohead's offer to download the album for free. I had no idea what expect, never having (so far as I know) heard anything of theirs before.
I've played it only once or twice, and quite enjoyed it. If I find it grows on me, I'll go back to their site and pay a fee for the download, which as far as I can recall was the deal they offered.
Some musicians (and I now forget who) have instituted the practice whereby you can download their music for free in lo-res (say, 64 or 96 kbps); that's good enough to listen to a few times while you decide whether or not you want to pay for the hi-res (full-CD-quality) version. That strikes as manifestly sensible: it's the nearest the music industry has gotten in decades to the old -- and so far as I was concerned enormously effective -- marketing ploy of allowing you to go into a record shop and ask for interesting-looking albums to be played.
Indeed, it's an improvement on this ploy. This is maybe why the big music companies loathe it: the last thing they want is an educated buying public.
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| hutch0 |
| 2008-01-12 23:36 (UTC) |
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I'm hoping In Rainbows will grow on me. I honestly like Radiohead, but apart from that brief period when they were evolving from Pablo Honey to Okay Computer and Kid A, I find I can take or leave their music. I think The Bends is one of the best albums of the past couple of decades and I really really want to like the rest of their stuff.
There certainly seems to be a serious change going on in the music business at the moment. How it will shake out, I can't tell.
And it's happening in publishing as well. Cory Doctorow has released a lot of his work onto the Net under a Creative Commons Licence, and other writers have done the same. I would do it, if I could afford a website to put them on.
We live in interesting times.
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| realthog |
| 2008-01-12 15:15 (UTC) |
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Huh? Portishead's album Dummy is a thig of wonder, while the rest of theirs that I've heard, while lesser, is still pretty acceptable.
I'm not so keen on Beth Orton's solo work, though.
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| hutch0 |
| 2008-01-12 23:40 (UTC) |
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I haven't had the pleasure of Portishead, but I did once hear Jamie Cullum on the radio and the person interviewing him challenged him to `jazz up' a popular song on the spot. Jamie agreed and the presenter named Kaiser Chiefs' `I Predict A Riot,' which he duly sang and played a jazz version of, entirely off the top of his head. I developed quite a respect for Jamie Cullum when I heard that.
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calm