Top 5/Bottom 5: Radiohead

If you’re anything like me, you love to listen to, talk about, and even argue about music. In that spirit I’ve decided to embark on a little project. Each week I’ll be listing my top 5 and bottom 5 songs from an artist or band that I love, or at least like. Disagree? Let me know, that’s half the fun.

Radiohead are one of the most influential and greatest bands of all time, having bridged the ‘90s alternative rock era to the 21st century’s computer-driven sounds. They are also one of my favorite bands and were a huge influence on my music and songwriting.

Top 5:

·      “Everything in its Right Place”: When Kid A was released in 2000, the critical response was mixed, to say the least. But in my circle of friends in Sonoma County, opinion was unanimous: Kid A was a masterpiece. We listened to the album at every opportunity: at every party, in spite of its not being what one would consider “party music”; standing around a friend’s car before a show our bands were playing together; at home on headphones, etc. I do vaguely recall that it took me a couple listens to really get into, but then so had OK Computer a few years before. However long it took, I loved it, and “Everything” quickly became one of my favorite album openers of all time. To this day I find few musical phrases so instantly transporting as the opening electric piano arpeggio. The sound is so warm it’s like an aural cocoon, something you want to crawl inside and live in, a feeling reinforced by the gentle heartbeat kick drum that enters shortly after the piano. The lyrics, seemingly a series of barely connected feeling-thoughts, come out almost as a series of confused mantras, the thoughts of someone desperately seeking calm in a world whose chaos is suggested by the reversed, effected vocal garbles that surface periodically. There are no guitars. Never has there been a more perfect mission statement for a band following up a huge commercial and creative success with a change of direction.

·      “How to Disappear Completely”: As wide a sonic net as Radiohead have cast since The Bends and OK Computer established them as one of the best and most influential modern rock bands, I think it’s fair to say that the band’s ballads have always been at the heart of their appeal to most serious fans. Thom Yorke’s singular voice is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and distinctive in modern music, and this song showcases it to an unparalleled degree. Written at a time that Yorke was struggling with mental health and the difficulties of fame and the road, the song was inspired by a book on creating new identity, as well as a sort of mantra that REM’s Michael Stipe recommended to Yorke: “I’m not here, this isn’t happening.” The song’s premise can certainly sound a bit nihilistic, however sympathetic a famous person’s desire to disappear from the public eye might be, but it is an undeniably gorgeous piece of music. “How to Disappear…” was also one of the first songs to highlight what would become a key element of the band’s sound in the coming years, namely Jonny Greenwood’s string arrangements. From the start, each element of the song’s arrangement is carefully considered, from the walking bassline to the strings that are sometimes lurking, sometimes swooping in only to recede a moment later, to Yorke’s acoustic guitar and vocal, the constant centerpiece. A masterpiece, and one that certainly puts the lie to the Melody Maker review that at the time claimed, “60 songs were started that no one had a bloody clue how to finish.” (That review is hilariously wrong and great reading, by the way.)

·      “Airbag”: Another great album opener, which includes one of Radiohead’s better guitar riffs. While still using most of the basic elements of a rock guitar band, this song nevertheless made clear that Radiohead were expanding their sound and venturing into territory that was truly their own. The slightly distorted drums seem to constantly stop and start, inspired by DJ Shadow’s beat mixing; the syncopated bassline echoes “I Shot the Sheriff” even as it ultimately becomes more and more frantic; and the guitars are constantly on the edge of disintegrating into sonic fragments. While “Paranoid Android” was the more epic composition and tops many lists, this is my favorite rocker on OK Computer.

·      “Bones”: My favorite of Radiohead’s earlier angst-driven rockers, “Bones” is driven by a great bassline and stuttering tremolo guitar. I love the way the guitar answers the bassline like an alt-rock “Rumble,” the speed of the tremolo gradually drawing down after the chord is hit. The lyrical portrayal of fear of aging is somewhat unique among rock’n’roll songs in that the fear is not necessarily of growing old and out of touch mentally or emotionally, but about growing old physically. This puts the song in contrast to “My Generation” and other rebellious rockers in that it acknowledges and attempts to reckon with the universal truth that everyone experiences the aches and pains of age sooner or later. Thom Yorke’s vocal is a great combination of his soaring range with the snarl of Johnny Rotten, fitting for a song that rages against forces that he knows are beyond his control. Songs like this are part of the reason so many fans missed Radiohead’s guitar-driven rock sound when they turned to electronics in the early 2000s.

·      “Creep”: As much as Radiohead have evolved since, and as overplayed as this song is, I still have to put it in my top 5. Much like Beck’s “Loser,” “Creep” was a great first hit that introduced the world to a band that turned out to be better than even the song’s biggest admirers could have predicted. I remember hearing it on the radio and seeing the video on MTV, and even at a time when Radiohead were using similar elements to a lot of other bands–a mix of clean and distorted guitars, quiet/loud dynamics, and angst-ridden lyrics–something about the song stood out. A big part of that something was definitely Thom Yorke’s voice, at the time rivaled only by that of Jeff Buckley. The lyrics certainly spoke to a confused adolescent as well as any of the time’s angsty grunge bands, and there were just enough curveballs in the arrangement to suggest that the band had more to offer than most.

Bottom 5:

·      “Hunting Bears”: A short instrumental from Amnesiac, the more “guitar-oriented” follow-up/accompaniment to Kid A. Some have speculated or opined that it was originally meant as a sort of intro or reprise to “I Might Be Wrong,” with which it shares a key and a basic guitar sound. Whatever the case, it might have worked better as an intro, or at least should have been more fully developed as a standalone piece. I recall seeing a review of the album around the time of its release saying this track’s guitar playing gave Richard Thompson “a run for his money,” or something along those lines. Uh, not quite.

·      “Karma Police”: I have to admit, I kind of just don’t get this song. It’s tuneful enough, and I have no problem with its slight cribbing of “Sexy Sadie” (sometimes that’s just how music happens, Gaye family). Nevertheless, while I don’t skip it when I listen to OK Computer, neither do I find it to be one of the album’s highlights. The description of a man who “buzzes like a fridge…like a detuned radio” is fantastic, but besides that the lyrics seem almost mean; there’s something to be said for putting a little meanness into a song now and then–music is of course an outlet for a great many emotions that you might not want expressed another way–but for whatever reason, the angle just doesn’t connect with me personally in this case. Musically the song is fine, but not one of the more interesting pieces of this era’s Radiohead. One of the few Radiohead songs that I wouldn’t be excited to hear on the radio if it happened to come on. I probably still wouldn’t change the station though.

·      “Videotape”: I love In Rainbows, but for me this album closer is a bit of a dud. What the heck does “When I’m at the pearly gates/this will be on my videotape” mean? Is it a suicide message? “This is one for the good days,” Yorke sings. Maybe it’s a reminder that there have been better days, even if the present seems bleak? Then why the obvious reference to death? For me, the lyrics aren’t quite specific enough to really conjure anything, and their abstraction doesn’t come off in a way that gives me a chance to assign my own meaning. In general, this would be my criticism of a lot of later Radiohead song lyrics: there are a lot of fragments and vaguely ominous phrases that just don’t stand on their own as insightful or unique. Musically, not a lot happens in this song either: The drums gradually skitter away in an interesting fashion, but the piano playing is elementary and not quite interesting enough to be the centerpiece of the whole song. “Pyramid Song” uses similar elements to much greater effect, with the notable addition of a great Jonny Greenwood string arrangement.

·      “Feral”: Not many people would rank The King of Limbs the best Radiohead album, but I think it’s a pretty good album that does have its moments. “Feral” is not one of them. I’m not one to poo-poo experimentation and abstraction in general, especially not in the case of a great band like Radiohead; but a piece of music like this still needs something to hold it together and take it somewhere in order to not feel like a throwaway. To my ear, “Feral” fails where tracks like “Treefingers” and “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” succeed. It just doesn’t have much beyond the groove going on, and it’s basically the same groove as “Bloom,” an actual complete song. The vocals are incomprehensible and not especially melodic. Basically 3 minutes of filler on an album that only features 8 songs.

·      “Last Flowers”: One of the difficulties of a list like this is always determining the scope of the inquiry: Are B-sides included? EPs? And so on. This song comes from the accompanying bonus EP to In Rainbows; I’ve decided it qualifies for this purpose since the EP features as many tracks as one Radiohead album, even if 2 of them are very short sound collages. A lot of Radiohead fans would have heard the songs on this EP around the same time as In Rainbows, which was famously released online as a pay-what-you-want download in 2007. The EP has its moments, but most of the material doesn’t compare to the quality of In Rainbows, and this is one of the weakest songs in my opinion. It crosses the line from dramatic mid-tempo number into plodding piano piece, and it has even fewer interesting elements than “Videotape.” The lyrics do nothing for me and the vocal is so anguished that it just serves to highlight the weakness of the whole piece. This is one of very few Radiohead songs I would say I actively dislike.