Article Response: Radiohead - Amnesiac

I find it very surprising that Tom E says

>>> How silly or skewed would it be to take Amnesiac as a political album? An album about the state of things, in a world where "things" have expanded to the very limits of what you thought was your privacy, and contracted to the point where you can't even name who's in charge?

I mean, I am susprised that anyone would think it 'skewed' or unusual to think of Radiohead as 'political'. I thought that Radiohead were by now considered a 'political' band, and that their last 3 or 4 LPs were supposed to be all about the place of individuals-in-an- electronic-corporate-world (or something more subtly and insightfully phrased than that).

Tom E also says: people complain about Radiohead not being formally groundbreaking. Again - eh? I thought that lots of people thought that Radiohead were formally groundbreaking. From my POV, they are probably formally groundbreaking. But then, from my POV, anything 'up to date' is formally groundbreaking (and probably not a good thing).

As usual, Tom E does a good job of describing how he likes something (that's a good thought - that we should try to describe HOW we like something, not WHY we like it). I don't suppose that I will join him in liking it as much, though, if I ever hear the record.

Radiohead are (is?) grandiose; folks seem to confuse that with being political. Just because they "say" a lot of things that seem important or controversial or even thought-provoking doesn't mean they're actually saying anything concrete. If there's one trait their music currently shares with _The Bends_ (when they were The Next U2), it's their grandeur. I'm not going to say they're talking loud & saying nothing, mind you. But it's fragmented, dissolute, incoherent - perfect fodder to ruminate on, but nothing truly worth analyzing in & of itself from song to song.

Political bands show you a finished picture, a representation of their thoughts. Bands like Radiohead (or, specifically, albums like _Amnesiac_) offer a canvas covered with various spots of paint and let you (the listener) suss out what these spots signify in your mind.

Really, _Amnesiac_ isn't too far off from the pop stuff Tom usually goes ga-ga over - most sucessful pop music (whether the creator is T. Yorke or M. Martin) just offers up these impressionistic portraits that don't mean much by themselves. The viewer/listener instills meaning within them. (That's the crux of Tom's _Pop Is Dead_ manifesto, isn't it? The attempt at these "impressionists" trying to actually represent something - going against what they initially stood for?)

David: "Political bands show you a finished picture, a representation of their thoughts": how can a representation of their thoughts be a finished picture? If it's finished, then they myst have stopped thinking (admittedly THIS is true of most "political" bands — in fact, some of 'em never started thinking...)

But you didn't say who *you* meant by political bands, so perhaps I'm being unfair.

Well done Tom, I'm really excited about it now.

The thing with Radiohead circa OK Computer, and the thing that put me off them, was that they tried to evoke all the tendencies that Tom describes in the opening passage, but did it very unsubtly, so you got a lot of very obvious sloganeering and what seemed like a total distrust of the modern world itself. Also the way it was put over was disappointingly straightforward - there didn't seem enough to *listen to* in it, and a song like "Karma Police" especially was terribly unappetising, *empty* when you heard it.

But then on Kid A something clicked for me. I suppose you could crudely define it as Radiohead saying a lot more through saying a lot less: the vague placeless graphics, as a simple evocation of rootlessness without saying explicitly What They Thought Of It, worked so much better than the "consumer buzzword" imagery of the OK Computer singles. And the music, for me, was unrecognisable from before and all the better for it, was suddenly the least crass thing in the world, and the most fascinating. The vaguer they become, the more interesting they get, and as Tom says the more pop as well.

And this makes me realise that Amnesiac might well be even better, and that I've put off buying it too long. This piece alone is the rebirth of FT I was waiting for.

Well, my idea of a political band / musician would be someone like, say, early Bob Dylan. Or a song like CSN&Y's "Ohio". They're stating their case, clear as day, and there isn't much of a chance to misinterpret them (unless you're wrong). They're straightforward & direct - that doesn't mean they're DONE with the thoughts (though I guess that could be construed from what I typed), but they're standing their ground on an issue.

Radiohead, however, is maddeningly vague. (At least, they are from _OK Computer_ on.) As such, there are endless interpretations to what they might be getting at, all of which ultimately reflect on the interpreter. They've mastered the art of the sound byte, while also developing in such a way that their MUSIC is more evocative (& telling) than their LYRICS.

What if a different kind of political statement in music is more appropriate to the political climate Radiohead are criticizing?

Pinefox - conventional critical wisdom on R'head seems (to me) to be that they used to be 'political' (which I'm using in the sense of making records explicitly about general social concerns, rather than in the sense of making records which make a statement on an issue) but that Thom Yorke is now writing lyrics that dont make any sense and it's all about the music. This seemed to me to miss a point (namely that Yorke's lyrics do their job very well, in a way that I think they didn't do before).

The groundbreaking thing - yes, a lot of people think Radiohead are groundbreaking. There are also people, quite vociferous ones, who argue that it's all been done before, and better. So my comment was about those people, not everyone.

Credit where it's due, actually, Pinefox: the idea of lyrics-as- epigrams making for good pop is lifted from your essay in that book Stevie T edited. I was even going to quote you but I couldnt find my copy when deadline loomed.

Couldn't agree with you more, Tom. I think Radiohead's current music says far more about how it feels living today than OK Computer, which was so obsessed with imposing a set idea of how it feels, that it made me feel, perversely, every bit as "emotionally overpowered" as I am by Blairite catchphrases.

To answer David's question: I think Radiohead's vagueness (on the last two albums, at least: OK Computer for me was nowhere near vague *enough*) makes them actually *more* political. I suppose that kind of clear, committed sloganeering makes less sense for me than it probably did when, say, Dylan and CSN&Y were recording, because it's much less clear who is on which "side" these days, so a lot of my ideas on "political" music now revolve around the avoidance of sloganeering, and the establishment of a particular mood or feeling of powerlessness (but not submitting to that powerlessness: there is an important difference).

Wait a minute, I just reread the article and caught this...

Thom Yorke - cranially perhaps their powerhouse, but vocally still their mumbly, mannered weakest link

What?!?!? Are you listening to the same Radiohead as I have been? Thom Yorke's vastly expressive, inarticulate yet powerful voice is one of Radiohead's greatest secret weapons. Yes, he mumbles, and in fact, most of the time I don't know what he's on about, but like I always said, I almost *never* listen to lyrics anyway.

Even when I have no idea what the lyrics are, the power of his vocals has always been his nonverbal expressiveness, not what he has actually been saying. It doesn't matter what he sings, it's *how* he sings.

I think this is ultimately, on repeated listens, what lifts Amnesiac above Kid A. My problem with Kid A was that vocals were as cut-up, disguised, and hidden, *not* because I wanted to listen to the words, but because the sheer emotive expressiveness of Yorke's vocals are what appeals to me sonically. Although the lyrics are still obscured and indeciperable on Amnesiac, the vocal as instrument seems to be more predominant.

I don't know about the political content. I haven't listened to the lyrics enough to be able to say either way or the other.

I find it funny to distinguish the 'Head from "political" music by citing a *lack* of sloganeering, given that sloganeering is becoming Yorke's biggest strength: every review of either of their last two records has latched onto one-sentence impressions that seem to sum up the general lyrical tone, whether "This is really happening," "Get off my case," or "Take the money and run." If there's politics in this material, it's cultural politics, personal politics, the politics of individual emotions. Which is only political in the sense that Elvis's hips were political.

I must admit that I'm not a fan of such things being called "political." "Politically informed?"---perhaps, but doesn't "politics," on some level, imply a course of action? Sets of affiliations, decisions as to public policy, meant to address via legislation the sorts of emotional reactions Yorke is touching on? If Amnesiac is political, what does that make Bily Bragg's "The Few"-- -a party platform?---or that Consolidated (?) track with the definitive political opinion: "RU486, Are you for 86---Yes I Am!"?

In essence, all Yorke's being congratulated for is writing lyrics addressing emotional responses to modern culture as a whole, as opposed to some specific girl or some lovely sunset. Which is great, as there's far too little of that sort of thing. But the "political" tag seems . . . a bit much. I think it's telling that we don't even have a better *word* for material that addresses general socio- economic climates but not politics in the absolute sense---so many songs about girls and alcoholic beverages that we're vaguely surprised anyone should sing about the pressing forces of reality.

Girls and alcoholic beverages are part of the pressing forces of reality if anything is. I just wish more artists would write about them in a more life-like way.

How about boys? Are they pressing?

Yeah, boys too.

I think Radiohead's so-called sloganeering is a perfect reflection of the political climate of today, the same as Dylan's straightforward messages were perfect for the 60s. As my sister pointed out to me in a recent conversation, the issues were pretty clear in the 60s. Black people were being opressed. Women had little independance. There was a stupid war on. Today, you've got issues like globalization. Most people under 25 have no clue about what globalization really is, let alone how it can be stopped, and so they're left with an ill-formed feeling of rage against injustice despite the fact that they don't know what injustices they're mad about nor what they can do to stop them. I find it funny that people are annoyed by Radiohead's "big business is bad" sentiments, when in a lot of ways, Yorke's paranoid pronouncements are a pretty good representation of the state of mind of a lot of people in our generation.