Radiohead's "A Moon Shaped Pool"

Radiohead got me into music. When I was a wee teen of 17, I discovered "Kid A" and soaked myself in it. It was the first time, I recall, that I'd actually just lie down and listen to an album, not doing anything, certainly not scrolling through my phone or my desktop. Its vision and emotional impact was clear; I sought more music like it.

Nice sounding story, but I actually can't listen to "Kid A" anymore. I find the fact pretty funny, since I know I've listened to it so, so many times, and it has had a clear, clear impact on my writing style and how I view art, and yet when I play it again I just get bored. After this recent listen of Radiohead's "A Moon Shaped Pool", I now have a working theory why.

I've been poring through Michael Azerrad's "Our Band Could Be Your Life" - I have a review of Mission of Burma's "Vs." kicking around somewhere, and I say something to the effect of, This book is a great piece of music criticism because it argues, though it may not convince you, why this band's music is great. I've ignored all the bands in the book up until now, and listening to them they're just unabashedly fucking great. (There are exceptions: I can't get into Black Flag and Husker Du, but the way Azerrad describes them, they're certainly someone else's favorite band.) The book is also a description of what "rock" is, which can't be assigned a simple definition; "rock" encompasses ideas on the artists' philosophy, how the music is made and the purpose behind the music, all concepts informing what the music actually is, and when it all comes together in an unphony, truly creative way, you get something really special like "Vs." and Fugazi's "The Argument", which to me is the crown jewel of rock n' roll thus far. If the Beatles or Bob Dylan began the concept of social awareness in rock, then the punks actually made it viable, and its ideas were refined throughout the 80s and 90s. The nice thing about it too is that it can literally be whatever the audience wants it to be - it's not one thing.

Listening to "A Moon Shaped Pool", I was thinking about that definition of rock and where Radiohead fits in it. First and foremost, let's just say it right out of the gate, right off the bat: Radiohead is like a stadium arena band. Which is funny, since the band members of Radiohead seem like pretty quiet, modest individuals, and which may not be true since I haven't listened much to their material between "Pool" and "Kid A". Those two aforementioned albums though, even in something like "How to Disappear Completely", no matter how quiet the song there is always a "big moment" that contrasts with the silence and coincides with the chorus. For "How to Disappear", it's marked by that guitar/violin thing (I can't tell, but it sounds like a string instrument) appearing as a leitmotif in the 15-second mark. It even happens in "Daydreaming". The music gradually escalates, the silence constructing a sort-of narrative until it suddenly gets (relatively) louder. In a number of songs in "Moon Shaped Pool", there's like a chorus that backs up Thom Yorke's singing, who certainly do not sound like the members of the band - they exist to heighten the song's drama. Personally I find that pretty boring; what bothers me is that it's a "false narrative", in that the music conveys to you this story progression where there is none. In the worst music - the music that frequently appears on lowest common denominator radio stations - it can be cloying, preachy; with Radiohead, it's just kinda weird, because everything else about the music is A-grade great.

Radiohead is also flirting around with rock and "electronic" music, and they're not sticking with one definitive place. This is not a bad thing of course, and they make interesting music, but I wonder if they're losing the distinctive traits of both. What makes rock great is that emotional journey the music goes through: the ups and downs of "Loose", "Rocks Off", "One of These Days", "Marquee Moon", "I Will Dare", "Summer Babe", "Cashout", I mean, they're thrilling, aren't they? What makes "electronic" music great is the opposite: it is that lack of emotion that encourages introspection, that provokes thought, that insinuates new ideas, much in the way Gerald Donald (of Drexciya) said that the music should speak for itself. Sure electronic music can convey emotion, but it's not in the same sense that a story provokes emotion - the music begins the idea, its arrangement and composition develops the idea, and then the song ends, feeling as if it had made its argument. (No wonder it's a genre so well-beloved by academics.)

Radiohead almost doesn't advantage from either genre because the lows are not that low and the highs are not that high. I don't think it's a fault of Yorke's lyrics, which I've always liked, but it's certainly an issue with the timing of the lyrics or how they're presented. Yorke is almost singing every song in "Moon Shaped Pool" in the same way; it reminds one of Matt Stone's comment while directing "Scott Tenorman Must Die", that Yorke had difficulty emoting in his performance. Because every song is trying to get somewhere, what with the chugging guitars or swelling strings, you think it's going to get somewhere, that it nevers get to; and while you're entranced by the music and try to sink into it, you get scooted along because the music is trying to get somewhere.

As I got older I got out of "Kid A". I mean, I've listened to "F♯ A♯ ∞", "If You're Into It, I'm Out of It", "Remain in Light"; its angst is an angst others have done in more vivid ways, and perhaps I should simply say more "pure" ways. "Idiotheque" is vaguely apocalyptic and you're not sure what is the perspective in "National Anthem"; "Everything in its Right Place", "Kid A", "How to Disappear Completely", "Optimistic" et cetera are all great but juxtaposed next to each other they don't really add into something more. In the case of "Remain in Light", which is a lyrical album, the Heads are getting a lot of mileage on the ideas they're presenting. ("Take a look at THESE HANDS! The hand SPEAKS; the hands of a government man.")

I actually like "Moon Shaped Pool" a lot, but I'm still bothered by some of the songs. "Daydreaming" is a great example of what bothers me: why did they need to dub vocals over it? Let the piano speak for itself; the vocals mask over the arrangements that themselves convey the indecision or transitory state the singer is going through. You can argue that it's important to the themes of the song, but it just seems so heavy-handed. "Decks Dark" is such a good song but around the 1:25 mark a chorus is dubbed over the music, yet again, to enhance the drama - it was so good at the pace it was going at that point! The best song on the album by far is "Desert Island Disk" which is so happy in its quietness, and has an appropriate moment to switch when Yorke sings, "Waking up from shutdown, / From a thousand years of sleep", moving the song forward on another gear by a simple change in the music and his intonation. It's this tendency to add too much to the music that one is reminded Radiohead writes songs for James Bond movies.

It's more weird than frustrating, because it's the difference between good and great, and sparsity is what differentiates great rock songs from good ones - the same for electronic music. And that's probably why I liked Radiohead when I was 17 and I'm tepid on them now - they're just the most sophisticated group of arena rockers to this date.

Additional notes

"Anima" is great though.