The manifesto can wait

Posted Wed 10 Oct
3 comments so far

So now I have listened to Radiohead’s new record I can give my considered opinion. BECAUSE I PAID FOR IT! cough OK, so I didn’t. I paid nothing for it. But I didn’t steal it.

Surely it is the best thing they have done since ‘OK Computer’! Surely they are a hotel lounge band, channeling Fleetwood Mac! Surely it is above average in places! Surely it is drone-inducing nonsense in others!

‘Nude’ is good. There are a few other good tracks. Enough for a storming EP that might have led me to buy more of their output only to discover they can’t keep up the pace, and are, in fact, rubbish.

The whole experience passes you by. They have nailed the ‘this track is getting interesting now, oh damn, that was the last thirty seconds and it is over now’ trick. Just when you think the snore-bore is finished, it gets interesting. Then ends. You feel cheated. And you think what might have been. The majority of the songs fit this pattern. Or the ones that aren’t good fit it. Which is, indeed the majority of them.

Little Johnny Greenwood, running through the town, win some, loathe some, in his nightgown

5/10, and in the real sense of the percentage. It is average. Not a 7/10 average that games and music rags dish out. I might be inclined to up that to a six, but I can’t see it stretching much beyond that.

Word to the Colony: I shall be deigning to put in an appearance at some point over the Christmas break. The usual suspects will be emithered soon. Even the ones in the Free State.

  1. So, what album would get 10/10 or 9/10?

    Also, your posts are pretty hard work to read. I just noticed that this is only true for your RSS feed. On your site you have…..paragraphs.

    1
    dan
    Wed 10 Oct, 12:54PM

  2. Hmm. What record would if give a nine or greater? Hard to say. I reckon you can grade them in different ways. Initial impressions, a week later, a month later, some other arbitrary period of time later. It has been a long time since I have thought ‘wow, I must get that record on the day of release’.

    Dunno, really. I think because as see it as some asymptotic scale, and don’t think anything should be awarded a ten. In the same way I don’t believe in naming my top-ten-of-anything, I would rather say ‘here are ten of X that I like, in no particular order, as the order may change tomorrow.’

    But anyhow, a few records I have liked recently:

    White Blood Cells - The White Stripes
    Fox Confessor Brings the Flood - Neko Case
    Sigur Ros - ()
    Ambulance Ltd - Ambulance Ltd

    I can’t think of more offhand, but there are bound to be some.

    (I am aware of the RSS issue. I shall be in touch with my flash-and-trousers designer to see how it should be fixed accord to the WebStandardsNaziPoliceGuide 2.0)

    2
    Stray Taoist
    Wed 10 Oct, 1:39PM

  3. Dear Points of View,
    Last night’s Coronation Street was rubbish. The new Radiohead album is not.

    Yours,
    Flash & Trousers.

    3
    beowulf
    Thu 11 Oct, 4:48PM

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