The King Of Limbs - Radiohead

Any regular followers of Radiohead’s blog http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/ knew that this album would again be a leap away from the guitar-led anthems of The Bends and OK Computer which brought them worldwide acclaim a decade ago. Recent ‘Office Charts’ have included tracks by dubstep (N.B. I use the term loosely) prodigies Jamie Smith of (The xx) and Ramadanman as well electronic stalwarts Four Tet and Aphex Twin. The sound of the album, unlike the release, was something that could be predicted, albeit vaguely.

The album opens with Bloom, a juxtaposition of arpeggiated piano, fast drum beats and a strange bass melody which then leads to a wall of high-pitched synths in the second part of the song. As you work your way through the album this combination of fast-paced electronic drum beats and slower basslines (a method employed by The xx to great success recently) played by Colin Greenwood, dominate the album, forming the base of almost every song.

Despite a similar formula, each song is different in detail, and a captivating listen. The instrumental track Feral starts with angry drum beats punctuated with string squeals, while the slow piano melody of Codex, combined slow bass creates a standout track and rates as one of the band’s most beautiful and seductive of their entire catalogue.

However guitar is not completely absent from the album, while there is a few bends of Jonny Greenwood’s guitar on ­Little by Little, a song with Yorke’s traditional melancholy lyrics, the first and only guitar-led song comes with the light acoustic guitar on Give Up The Ghost. However the most noteworthy use of guitar comes with the final track of the album, Separator.

The song starts with bass drones, drum beats and faint guitar plucks before a beautiful guitar melody kicks in carrying you to a euphoric end of the album with the line ‘If you think this is over/ You’re wrong’. The song, as the album does as a whole, represents a moment of joy for the band. They no longer have to struggle to meet the deadlines of record labels, but can make music as they wish; comprising whatever styles and sounds they want, whether it is vintage Radiohead from the 90s, the experimental 00s, or something completely new.

The King Of Limbs represents freedom for the band and for music. Following the traditions of dubstep artists, the band urges people making music to produce and release it independently and to ‘do what you want’ (from the first single from the album, Lotus Flower). Once again Radiohead have made an intelligent, challenging album, completely in tune with the changing face of music today, and perhaps more importantly, highlighting what is to come.

As OK Computer was a zeitgeist album for 90s consumer society, The King Of Limbs is for the future of music in coming years.

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Stanley Donwood

Stanley Donwood, the man behind all of Radiohead's album covers from The Bends onwards, plus the Radiohead Bear, above, has just had his work put on show in the U.S. for the first time, in the San Francisco gallery FIFTY24SF. The exhibition entitled Over Normal is one I would love to have the chance to go and see and is sure to be enjoyable, interesting and provocative.

Desire Enlargement

MY top 10 radiohead tracks

This was not an easy list to make and i based my choices on three factors:
1. Enjoyment
2. Power of Meaning
3. Composition

I don't care if you disagree...

10. Bodysnatchers

Controversial start? An obscure song off an average album? Wrong. A song that highlights Radiohead's ever changing styles from an album that does the same along with a catchy riff and some beautiful harmonies (see 2.12).



9. Bullet Proof...I Wish I was

Again another choice which some may find strange, but after listening to all of the Radiohead's back catalogue, this track sticks out, for this listener, as one of the most beautiful, mesmeric things the band has ever done.



8. Karma Police

Recognise this one? A classic from a classic album. The change of key on 'For a minute then' is truly astounding.



7. The Bends

Another more well known song about the band coming up for air after the never-ending touring and interviews after the success of Creep. Amazing guitar work from all three guitarists, Jonny in particular, something which this live performance really shows off, and also one of the most beautiful endings to any song i've ever heard (maybe better to check out the album version for that).



6. Fake Plastic Trees

Thom Yorke said he broke down in tears after recording this track, and after listening to this live version thats pretty much where I end up every time. Greenwood's guitar at 2.45 is breath-taking, 'it wears me out refrain' is haunting and the whole song is awe - inspiring.



5. Blow Out

A golden oldie. The mesh of noise at the end foreshadowed what an amazing band Radiohead would turn out to be and their experimental nature, and showed their willingness to try things that no-one else was doing. The dreamy pop at the beginning isn't bad either.



4. Planet Telex

From the first atmospheric seconds of the band's second album, you knew they had a made an amazing record and had done so in no way any other band could have done. Like Blow Out, a marker of what was to come.



3. Everything In Its Right Place

After producing two of the greatest guitar albums ever made, the next song they commit to CD is an electronic classic. They completely changed their style and still made something heaps better than anyone else.



2. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Simply the band's most powerful song. Haunting. Scary. Beautiful.



1. Paranoid Android

After sitting here for ten minutes this is all i can come up with to describe paranoid android: unique, unrelenting and one of the most musically complex songs ever written.




There you go, hope you enjoyed :)

As for albums, im not going to try and justify this choice:

1.The Bends 2. OK Computer



3. Kid A 4. In Rainbows
5. Amnesiac

6. Hail To The Thief








7. Pablo Honey

IN RAINBOWS - RADIOHEAD

In Rainbows, the seventh album by Radiohead, is remarkable for many reasons, not least its unique distribution. On the 10th of October 2007 the album was independently released by the band as a digital download, the first of its kind, whereby customers could purchase the album for whatever price they saw fit.

While the marketing of the album was a step in a new direction for the band, the music is less so, however this is by no means a bad thing. Once again the band’s music presents a wide variety of styles and instruments; ranging from electronic beats and string arrangements to celestes and Jonny Greenwood’s beloved ondes martenot, and the songs present to the listener almost an amalgamation of what makes the band so special.

15 Step, the album’s opener, starts with Kid A-esque drum beats and handclaps before a jazzy, fluid guitar melody floats on top of it. This combination of driving drums and complex acoustic guitar is something of a motif within the album, also present on the impressive, atmospheric Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, as well as Jigsaw Falling into Place which with its brisk guitar and rapid piano, combined with Thom Yorke’s soaring falsetto leaves the listener breathless at close.

As with most Radiohead albums there is again evidence of the bands rock roots and this comes with the second track on the album, Bodysnatchers, which starts with an unclear, sludgy guitar riff similar to OK Computer’s Electioneering, until the songs breaks into an acoustic number with twangs of guitar and electronic drum beats over it.

What follows Bodysnatchers is something that die-hard fans will have been waiting for since the time it was recorded in 1997 during OK Computer. Nude had been a favourite request at live shows and it is presented beautifully on In Rainbows. The song starts with atmospheric electro sounds before soft drums and a simple bass line rhythm begins. Enchanting guitar melody and strings follow leading the song to a truly beautiful climax.

String arrangements are another facet of the band’s music which have become more and more prominent and are combined with acoustic guitar on Faust Arp, and simple guitar chords on the slow ballad House of Cards. They are also present on possibly the standout track of the album, and one of the bands most hypnotic and beautiful tracks to date, Reckoner.

In Rainbows, while it may not seem like the best thing the band has done, really epitomizes what makes them special. After seven albums the band can still make beautiful, original music and after listening to In Rainbows a few times it is clear that there is something special about every track, something worthwhile to write about a record, so much so that two of the best tracks on the album All I Need and Videotape did not get mentioned in this review. There is no way to really sum up Radiohead or the music they make, all that is clear is that they are unique in what they do in this time and all music lovers should pray that they continue to make music because we need them now, more than ever.

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OK COMPUTER - RADIOHEAD

OK Computer is the third studio album from British band Radiohead and, while the majority of the music is still guitar dominated, it marks a progression to a more expansive sound drawing on a wider range of influences than their previous albums, setting it apart from the majority of Britpop and alternative rock sounds at the time.

The album not only indicates a progression of the band’s musical style, but lyrically as well. When writing the first two albums it seems the band were content on using introspective soul-searching as their main reference point, however on OK Computer the cryptic lyrics address much bigger, salient issues about life in the 1990s. Let Down with its soothing, arpeggiated guitar melody deals with transport and being in transit, but not in control, passing the world by ‘crushed like a bug in the ground’, with the electric piano at the end highlighting the band’s desire to experiment with other instruments, and succeeding. Subterranean Homesick Alien, which also makes use of the electric piano, tells the story of an isolated narrator who longs to be abducted by extraterrestrials to see ‘the world as I’d love to see it’ , showing the band identifying with the social disconnection of the common majority in the 1990s and the malaise they felt.

OK Computer is an ambitious album which sees the band tackle big ideas with a style that was very different from the majority of music being produced at the time and, while the first half of the album is a masterpiece of song-writing and composition, after Thom Yorke’s computerised voice stating what he saw as slogans of the 90s in Fitter Happier, the album does take a dip. Although, in typical Radiohead style all of the songs are well-formed and well-written, they just don’t live up to the first half of the album or indeed the band’s previous album The Bends. Electioneering, despite its catchy riff, would not be out of place on the band’s distinctly average debut Pablo Honey, and songs like No Surprises just seem too light and simple after listening to the astounding first half.

Despite some weak points there is no doubt in my mind that Radiohead’s third album while it maybe not their best, is definitely their most important. The band refused to retread successful formulas which the majority of bands in Britain were doing at the time. After showing signs of it on The Bends in the songs like Planet Telex, on OK Computer the band took up ground that no-one was claiming and made a record that was completely new and different to what was being made by their contemporaries. Their daring to try something new and their skill at their craft is most evident in their longest, most ambitious and impressive song to date in Paranoid Android, a song written in four parts, each part written by a different member of the band containing changes in key and tempo and time.

OK Computer, although it may not be best album ever recorded, must surely rank high as one of the most important recordings of all time. It showed bands it was OK to try new things with their music and go against what they are programmed to do to please their labels and you can bet that without this album the music industry would be a much duller place.

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THE BENDS - RADIOHEAD

The Bends, released in 1995, is the second studio album from English five-piece Radiohead. The album marks a notable shift in aesthetics and themes the band deals with and a move away from the introspective grunge style which primarily dominated their first studio album, Pablo Honey.



After the success of their first single Creep, a self-loathing elegy of lead singer Thom Yorke’s feelings as a young man, in not only the UK but also America, and the near-constant touring the band had to undertake, this album seems to be a reaction to the pressures of producing a superior follow up and being at the sharp end of a the sexy MTV lifestyle which was emerging at the time. These feelings manifest themselves most lucidly in lead single My Iron Lung which contain the lyrics ‘this is our new song / just like the last one / a total w.a.s.t.e of time’. After starting with an alluring guitar melody, the song begins to breakdown with thrashes of Jon Greenwood’s guitar seemingly expressing the band’s frustration at the Iron Lung which once gave them life as a band but is now leaves them suffocating after its success.

The album also seems to mark the beginning of a change in style immediately noticeable from the atmospheric keyboard sounds on the first track, Planet Telex. The subsequent piano chords instantly indicate this is something different from the band’s debut and Yorke’s cryptic lyrics and Greenwood’s psychedelic, broken guitar sounds leave the listener ravenous for more. However what follows is not a continuation of the euphoric, soaring electronic sounds of Telex, but a much more Pablo Honey-esque, guitar dominated track, in The Bends. This eponymous track continues the band’s exploration of the quiet / loud dynamic but marks a progression both lyrically and musically leaving the listener wondering whether this can be the same band that produced the largely bromidic collection of rock songs that is Pablo Honey.

Other highlights on the album include the simple but beautiful ballad High & Dry which again deals with the disillusionment after success, Just with its addictive, ascending riff and also sees Greenwood showcase all his (considerable) talents with an astounding guitar solo, and Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was, probably the most beautiful song on the album.

The Bends, then, seems to defy belief after the modesty of Pablo Honey. There is so much to say about each song not only about its composition, but also about the lyrics in each. While they all might not carry the weight of meaning of Fake Plastic Trees or in particular the album’s culmination Street Spirit (Fade Out), there is something about each song which will provoke thought and contemplation. This is what makes the album so special; not only is it the quality of music that makes you what to replay it, but also the tremendous meaning each song has, and this power continues to grow with every listen.

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PABLO HONEY - RADIOHEAD

Pablo Honey was released in 1993 and is the humble origin of a band that would go on to be one of the biggest and most important in modern music.

Listening to the album’s lyrics it is clear the main influence for songwriter Thom Yorke is the American grunge movement of the early 1990s with the majority of the Yorke’s lyrics portraying the default grunge mantra of teenage angst and isolation, similar to post-punk American bands such as Pixies and Sonic Youth.



Unlike future Radiohead works, the majority of the album was written using only guitars and drums; however the usage of these guitars varies throughout the album. Thinking About You sees Yorke sing an emotional lament over simple acoustic guitar while How You Do is an upbeat pop rock anthem which ends in a mesh of jerky piano and guitar screeches. The album bustles between beautiful, harmonizing guitar melodies and areas of chaotic euphony, never quite settling on a single style and this is perhaps most evident in standout track Creep.

It seems that Creep covers everything Yorke is trying to portray in the rest of the album. The song starts with a soft guitar refrain and quiet bass over which Yorke mocks himself and others like him with self loathing lyrics ‘I want a perfect body/ I want a perfect soul’. The song then explodes into a full-blown indie anthem with Jon Greenwood’s resonating guitar crunches and Yorke’s refrain ‘I’m a creep/I’m a weirdo’. The song reflects Yorke’s self-lacerating rage about not fitting in as a young man, presumably while at Exeter University, and has become an anthem and a rallying call to the disaffected youth of today.

Pablo Honey then, appears to be something of a mixed bag. While tracks like Stop Whispering and Prove Yourself are perfectly listenable and enjoyable, it is only really Creep which has any resonance after listening to the album. The album also has pitfalls in the form of the clichéd Anyone Can Play Guitar and tracks like Ripcord and Vegetable which would be at home on any below-par Britpop album. However the album ascends the bracket of standard Britpop due to the combination of mellifluous harmonies and melodies of bass and guitar and Thom Yorke’s soaring voice.

Therefore while the album may not live up to the tag some critics have given it as the British Nevermind, Pablo Honey is nonetheless a solid rock album. All the songs are well written and it is clear that all five members are talented musicians and, in Thom Yorke there is a very intelligent songwriter. Radiohead clearly have potential and in the album closer Blow Out we see the five-piece in all their glory – Yorke’s haunting voice floating above light guitar before morphing into a staggering mesh of bass, drums and Greenwood’s shrieking guitar – greater things to come, surely.

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