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Radiohead

I believe it's important for me to clarify one thing before I even start explaining my relationship to Radiohead: I don't consider myself a fan of this group (please don't hit me)! I find that most of their output is overrated and no, I don't believe Thom Yorke is the second coming of Christ. However, I have "grown up" with them since the early years and witnessed their progression from a presumed "one-hit-wonder-band" to the international rock stars they've become today. I remember listening to the music video for Creep for the first time on a late night alternative music show here in Quebec and thinking: "Wow! So this is what Nirvana and The Pixies' soft/loud dynamic can sound like when taken to extremes!". I enjoyed the track very much, danced to it in the clubs, but never expected anything else from this band and left it at that. Once The Bends came out, I was probably one of the few who didn't catch on. I adored Fake Plastic Trees and thought I'd give the album a try, so I borrowed my sister's worn up tape to listen to it in the car while going to school. I've played it on a loop for a while, but no matter how much I would listen to it, I just couldn't get into it. Don't tell me I didn't try! I really wanted to love this, but besides Fake Plastic Trees, I felt the rest of the album paled in comparison.

I would have to wait until the release of the monumental OK Computer to fall in love with the band once again. This is without a doubt the group's incontestable masterpiece and I doubt they will ever top this one ever again. As successful as The Bends was, I feel it's OK Computer that deservedly made them into one of rock'n'roll's most highly-regarded bands in history; ironically, it's also this very same album, one I've loved ever so much, that turned me away from them. The success was getting so out-of-hand that every second person I met in the street would be praising them as if they were semi-Gods put down on this planet to save our souls somehow. I get rapidly tired of pretty much anything if I continuously hear about it, whether it be sports, cars, the news, a movie, a book; if half the planet is raving about something, I'll usually get very bored very quick with it. And that's what happened for me in regards to Radiohead.

What they did next however did attract my sympathy: and what they did was Kid A! The number of fans they must have alienated with that one! Just the thought puts a smile on my face. Kid A might have scared off most of the casual fans of the band with it's experimental approach, but it's hardly original considering how much it was influenced by the whole Warp Records scene at the time (Yorke reportedly bought the label's whole back catalog at the time).

And then there was nothing for a while...

And during those years in between, I moved on and pretty much forgot about the band. I would hear about Amnesiac, and I even gave it a quick listen but brushed it off pretty much immediately. Then Hail To The Thief came and went without me even knowing about it (in fact, I hadn't even heard the album before I purchased the EMI box set). I had new music to explore and Radiohead just didn't give me that euphoric feeling of hearing something new a refreshing. I don't know why, but it would be with the release of In Rainbows that I would start paying attention again. Actually, it's one song that gave me hope again: All I Need. This track has gone on to become my all-time favorite Radiohead track, but as breathtaking as it is, I wasn't ab out to go out and get everything like I usually do. Fast forward a few weeks after the release of the album, I'm in my old work place: HMV Megastore and they're having a huge sale on EMI's box set of their first studio albums and the new In Rainbows. For less than fifty bucks, I could get every album they've ever put out! How could I resist!? So here they are, proudly sitting on my CD shelves. I might not be a fan, but these guys definitely have a place in my collection and you can rest assured I will be getting more albums as they are released from now on (but I'll probably skip all the singles and wait for some sort of b-side compilation).

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