Atlanta’s delightfully named Creative Loafing magazine has a piece about the intellectual appeal of Radiohead’s music. An excerpt-
“Like a college curriculum, Radiohead’s discography begins with basics, influences and theory (Pablo Honey); moves through seminal concepts, weighing pros and cons (The Bends and OK Computer); and opens its scope into innovation (Kid A and beyond). Each album finds the studious Brits progressing in their path to musical enlightenment: precocious young adults producing a melange of the Pixies and the Smiths; surprise purveyors of two of the finest mortality- and technology- fearing albums of the rock era; trailblazers into an unfamiliar territory of sound and space.
“This studied progression hasn’t been without its compromises and obstacles. A decade ago, Radiohead was trying to break its single, “Creep,” off its Pablo Honey debut (an album the band barely acknowledges anymore). Back then, the eager-to-please lads lip-synched their breakout track at the MTV Beach House, while Yorke sported long bleached-blond hair. And upon the release of Kid A, disgruntled rock purists cried heresy at a band they had nearly canonized a couple years before.”
You can read the entire article here.
(Thanks to Joseph, who runs the impossibly interesting pulk-pull* site.)
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