some music is made for the dance floor, some for political rallies. radiohead's music is for headphones--the big, plush ones that let you lean back, close your eyes and become lost in the sound.
cue the british band's new album and you'll hear shards of guitar cutting and swirling through dense, trippy compositions. holding it all together is the unnervingly beautiful wail of thom yorke, who sounds like johnny rotten (if he could sing).
the sonically daring ok computer has recieved near-unanimous praise as an album-of-the-year candidate and manages to recall the dubious "art rock" era without drowning in its excesses.
how hot is radiohead with the rock cognoscenti?
when the band played new york's irving plaza this summer, the vip section was crowded with madonna, sheryl crow, courtney love, marilyn manson, joan osborne and members of u2, rem, and the beastie boys.
yorke knew all this was coming the minute ok computer was finished. yeah, sure he did.
"it took a year and a half to do and it was very difficult to be sure of our ground because the ground itself was very unfamiliar," he said. "at the end of it was a week of sleepless nights worrying about it thinking, 'this is not what people are expecting. oh god, we're doomed.'
"by that point, we weren't in a position to judge because we'd worked on it so long," he said.
capitol records wasn't pleased. there was nothing like "creep," the 1993 hit song that gave radiohead its start. in fact there wasn't anything remotely close to a catchy song that radio stations could embrace.
"i think some panic buttons were hit, which was cool," yorke said. "we didn't expect anything else."
capitol came around when the reviews came in and the album showed strong initial sales.
radiohead's music is as demanding upon rock and roll generally gets. songs develop slowly and shift dynamics abruptly. melody is there, but it's not drilled into the brain with repetition.
perhaps because the five members of radiohead grew up in the ost-punk era, the ridiculous elements of "progressive" rock--ham-fisted classical references and ponderous solos--are missing from what they do.
"i never considered it to be a difficult album to listen to or obscure in any way. it's just the sound we had in our heads," he said. if we wanted to be willfully obscure and difficult, we could have made a much more willfully obscure and difficult record."
ask what sounds yorke, guitarist gonny greenwood, guitarist ed o'brien, bass player colin greenwood and drummer phil selway drew inspiration from and you get a stew of popular uic: marvin gaye's what's going on?, miles davis' bitches brew, the beach boys' pet sounds, some kraftwerk, some bjork.
try to find a common thread and you'll wind up with your hands tied.
yorke's lyrics are filled with vivid though indistinct images: kicking, sqealing gucci little piggy came to his mind when watching a woman spill wine on an expensive dress.
the album has been described by listeners as everything froma concept album about aliens to a commentary on an information-clogged society. yorke leaves the interpretations to others, but notes he's been writing more as a reporter these days.
"the record before was very much about my personal feelings-- a drunk guy on the back of a bus feeling sorry for himself," he said. "this one was much more about being a witness to the external world. it's very much more of a difficult way to write."
he writes almost like a shopper, drawing up compulsive lists of images and arranging them into categories that become songs. he "sees" melodies in colors, the colors that ended up on the album's cover.