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Radiohead Working On New Album

11 February 2009, Ghalib @ 10:37 pm

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your take, In Rainbows did not win best album at the 2009 Grammy awards. (The band did, however, perform a spirited version of “15 Step” with the USC Marching Band.) But more importantly, and well before all the Grammy hoop-la, in September of last year, after losing the Mercury Music Prize to Elbow, Collin Greenwood mentioned to BBC 6 Music that the band had returned from its world tour and headed straight into the studio to begin working on an eighth album. “We’re still talking about doing some stuff and we’re really excited about it,” he said. Some individuals on a Radiohead messageboard I frequent responded by hoping for a quick release of the following album to counteract the sour lingering taste of the last one.

What did you all think of In Rainbows? I agreed with the critics that it found the band treading water, and the two previous records had set high standards, perhaps unreachable, for all the ones following. “House of Cards” (for which they were nominated for Best Video at the Grammies) is a good song, with an innovative, trippy video to be sure, but nothing can truly match the strangeness or the splendour of a piece of music like “Everything Its Right Place,” or “How to Disappear Completely.” Nevertheless, “15 Step” did justice as an album opener and “Weird Fishes” found its way into my heart by endless waves of triplets, one arpeggio flowing over another, exhibiting the band’s formalist mastery without undue fanfair. My two favourites are still the quieter tracks, “Nude,” a gorgeous ballad with an atypical melodramatic finale, and “Videotape.”

Meanwhile, I found the lyrics on this album more personal than any of the others aside from maybe their first; it isn’t often that we find the author of such lines as “kicking squealing Gucci little piggie” writing “I don’t want to be your friend/I just want to be your lover.” So no, it was not a flawless work, especially not lyrically, and especially not
on “Jigsaw Falling into Place,” a truly boring musical moment on the album. But the question is, of course, where does one go after such a record, a mixed bag of beautiful moments and not-so-interesting ones?

Probably to oblivion or redemptive ground, the two most clearly visible paths. A mediocre record (the first road) at this stage of the game is almost expected. At an average age of 40+, the band has reached a level of inordinate success, and one might assume they’re slowing down. According to a New York Times article, they have eleven kids between the five of them and can’t dedicate as much time to the studio as they could during the Kid A years. So the fact some of us want another electronic masterpiece may just be wistful thinking . . . but I hear ours is an age of hope.

Radiohead – Nude
Radiohead – Videotape

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Filed under: Radiohead

Tags: news

16 Comments

1. Radiohead Fan — February 11, 2009 @ 11:28 pm
   
   

   I love Radiohead! Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box is probably my favourite song.




2. Milton — February 11, 2009 @ 11:29 pm
   
   

   It was the USC Marching Band.




3. The R.O.B. — February 12, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
   
   

   “The Critics” thought ‘In Rainbows’ was treading water? What were you reading?

   8.8 on Metacritic, which is some type of average of a pile of different reviews…
   http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/radiohead/inrainbows




4. Allan — February 12, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
   
   

   I wasn’t so smitten with In Rainbows but yeah the Critics blew a load with In Rainbows like they have with Animal Collective.




5. FetchMP3 — February 13, 2009 @ 10:18 pm
   
   

   I kinda forgot about radiohead until in rainbows. I thought it was one of the best of 2008 for sure




6. Ghalib — February 14, 2009 @ 8:18 pm
   
   

   While I agree the ratings were generally very high (like Pitchfork’s outrageous 9.3, for example), I’m more interested in what they said in relation to the ingenuity factor of the album. That statement “treading water” was from a New York Times music critic. Yes, everyone recognized the record’s strengths, but it didn’t exactly blow minds like the two first ones of this decade. Most critics were quite aware of this, and reflected it in their reviews.




7. Rob — April 27, 2009 @ 1:51 am
   
   

   Brutal taste man, jigsaw is my favorite on the album – such a sick riff, really dark, and the climax at the end is remarkable! Saw them live and they played it almost like a duel with 2 acoustics, was unreal.




8. Brendy — May 7, 2009 @ 7:59 am
   
   

   Jigsaw Falling Into Place – “truly boring musical moment”??!! WTF??!! What time do you get up in the morning in order to smoke THAT AMOUNT OF CRACK??!! Have a word with yourself pal. What exactly are YOUR musical credentials? You, my friend, don’t know a crotchet from a hatchet. Go and have a little lie down. You’re obviously having one of your funny turns.




9. Ghalib — May 7, 2009 @ 8:50 pm
   
   

   I have no credentials, just opinions. And crack is not my drug of choice. In the end, I’m glad this article is still inciting comments months after being written. That was the real point of writing it at all.




10. Brendy — May 8, 2009 @ 4:45 am
    
    

    Fair point, we’ll agree to disagree. However, despite this not being their strongest album (Amnesiac, clearly), I still think that the majority of the tracks on it were stronger than almost anything else I heard last year. If you can educate me as to what was better then I’d be very keen to listen to it.




11. Brendy — May 8, 2009 @ 4:46 am
    
    

    P.s DON’T DISS CRACK!!




12. Ghalib — May 8, 2009 @ 7:50 am
    
    

    I don’t think there were too many that were better in 2008. Of the ones that were good, there was Bonnie Prince Billie’s Lie Down In The Night, David Byrne and Brian Eno’s record (Everything That Happens Will Happen Today), M83’s Saturday = Youth, as well as the TV On The Radio record . . . Radiohead has always been one of my favourite bands, so I never meant to diss them. I expect nothing but the best, however, from them, and Kid A and Amnesiac are truly hard to top, as we know. It’s a bit unfair, I suppose, to always drag the discussion in that direction, but it’s hard not to.




13. darth gabe — July 6, 2009 @ 11:38 pm
    
    

    ..where did you learn to critique music? The Helen Keller Shool of Art Appreciation? On what planet is jigsaw falling a boring musical moment? You obviously wouldn’t know aural symmetry if it fell from the sky, wriggled on your face and sang paranoid android..




14. Ghalib — July 7, 2009 @ 1:32 pm
    
    

    On earth it’s a perfectly legitimate opinion. Look, I’ve listened to every Radiohead album, every EP and minor release; it’s an educated opinion about a band I love dearly. I think Jigsaw is f-ing boring song, especially for its lyrics, which on In Rainbows is weak at times. And Hellen Keller was my great aunt, bro. Don’t mess.




15. Jamie Major — July 23, 2009 @ 6:43 am
    
    

    What in the name of all that just might be holy is this person on about. In rainbows is a great and different album, full stop. A band like radiohead dont make an album so that it can sound like the other great albums they have done already, what is the point of that. If that were the case then they might aswell all put on there sunglasses and become Bono (prick). “To survive a shark has got to keep on swimming, keep moving forward, if it stops doing that, it just slips away and dies” (Ed O’Brian). And finnally, for anyone who belives that any bit of In Rainbows is boring and treading water then watch the thumbs down version followed by the scotch mist version and tell me how F**KING ordinary they are then!




16. darth gabe — August 22, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
    
    

    ..you’ve obviously inherited her musical ear..

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