Radioheadin’, King of Limbs-style

01. TALKING HEADS NEED NOT APPLY

Radiohead. You may love them or you may hate them (if you’re Cher Horowitz, you’re welcome, extremely dedicated Paul Rudd fans) but whenever they release a new album, it’s very hard not to have an opinion about them for that period of time. For fans, these are some of those moments that are still clear throughout the years. I remember the first time I listened to one of their albums and fell in love with the band. I remember the resulting few months when just about all I listened to was the band as I learned their entire catalogue. I remember that crazy moment in 2007 when they announced they had an album coming out in 10 days, and everybody spent that week walking around the university going, “WHAT?” and “I KNOW!” and “THOM YORKE HAVE ALL OF MY BABIES.” But that might have just been me.

But that was an interesting album, In Rainbows, because it got people listening to the band who wouldn’t have otherwise, partially because everybody was talking about them and partially because it turns out when they said you could pay what you wanted for the album, it turned out that could be “nothing,” which is a pretty tempting offer for some people. Me, I paid as much as I possibly could to get a fancy version because I am a consumer whore and that’s how I like it.

But instead of talking about the ways I spent more money than is prudent (as I look at no fewer than five different plastic Batmen, which isn’t even half of the ones in this room), I’d like to talk about last week. Last week, Radiohead announced on their website once more than they had a new album coming out, this time in only 6 days. Just like it did in 2007, the internet went absolutely bananas about it. Music magazines and news organizations rather adorably scrambled to get up an article about it before each other, and fans, myself included, exchanged exclamations of “HOLY BALLS” and debated whether or not to once again buy the super expensive (“Newspaper Album”) version, though I’ll confess that it only took me as long as clicking actually takes, which it turns out is not very long at all, also: where did all my money go?

02. THERE AINT NO MUSIC INDUSTRY LIKE A RADIOHEAD MUSIC INDUSTRY

But the more I think about it, the more I realize how unique this is. How many bands could generate so much attention with a few words on their webpage? How rare is it that album releases are actually a communal event anymore? With album leaks, the last time I can remember listening to an album for the first time at the same time I knew everybody else was, well, it was… Radiohead. Let’s not overlook how special that kind of approach is. Because these days, that kind of excitement is rare, it seems. Hell, the cover of the local paper on Saturday had a headline about how The King of Limbs was released a day early.

But at the same time, I don’t want to sound like a doomsayer. The reality is that one of the biggest bands in the world just self-released an album completely outside of the machine that’s doing the doomsaying. If anything, this might show how vibrant love for music actually still is, how the story this time wasn’t about paying what you want, but simply about a lot of people wanting to listen to a new album by a band they loved. If music is still being loved and appreciated and talked about, then I can’t see how the industry could possibly be dying. The big labels? Maybe. But bands, their music, and the people who get excited about it? That’s not going away, ever.

03. EARHOLES ARE MY FAVOURITE HOLES

The first thing you notice about The King of Limbs is that it doesn’t sound much like the album that preceded it, but if you’re a Radiohead fan, that’s like saying that the band released an album. Whereas In Rainbows was the band’s most organic, natural-sounding album in years, The King of Limbs is quite different. Right of the start, “Bloom” skitters and twitches, with the kind of bleeps and bloops that I have come to crave. However, “Morning Mr Magpie” jumps into a different sound entirely, with forceful guitars. And the rest of the album? It’s different entirely. There are hints of Kid A and Amnesiac, with touches of Thom Yorke’s solo album The Eraser in between. There’s piano and sinister bass and Phil Selway’s skilled drummination, but by the time “Separator” and the end of the album have rolled around, nothing is quite the same as it was before it. The King of Limbs is an album that branches and sprouts in any number of directions, constantly shifting, with the only real stability being Yorke’s high, delicate wail and the skill of Yorke and the men he’s spent the better part of his life with. This isn’t a Radiohead album you’ve heard before, and I think you should check it out. It’s pretty sounds from start to end, and you’ll spend a lot of time digesting and teasing out details from it.