Album Of The Week/Primer Part 10: Radiohead- In Rainbows

There are two important threads running through In Rainbows that I feel are the key to appreciating it:

1) This is Radiohead's most human album, full of songs about love, worrying about death, and wondering how it all adds up.

2) This is Radiohead's most direct and concise album, full of songs that are road tested, tight, and immediately engaging.

Due to both of these, In Rainbows can initially strike a listener as being...too easy. Radiohead albums are supposed to be something that you struggle with and have to think a lot about, aren't they?? They're supposed to grow on you and open up new layers and meaning with time, aren't they??

In Rainbows commits the "crime" of being an accessible, immediately enjoyable Radiohead album. Patterned after the lean-and-mean classic rock albums of old that barely scraped the 35 minute mark, In Rainbows is the sound of a band accepting that they might not have any place left to go, any great experiments to undertake, aside from the least obvious one: to make a great pop album. Which is exactly what this album is. Lyrically and musically, it is Radiohead's pop album.

Though, to be fair, it's still really artsy and interesting, songs full of small delights and surprises.

If Hail To The Thief was a long, semi-sprawling album that collected and perfected all of the sounds that the band had explored up to that point, then In Rainbows is the band boiling down everything that makes them great until what's left in the bottom of the cooking pot is 40 minutes of perfection. What's most surprising about the music on In Rainbows is the revealing of the emotional, human heart that's been at the heart of Radiohead songs all along. Kid A was pretty abstract, but for music that was often criticized for being withdrawn, intellectual, and cold, using the Rosetta's Stone of In Rainbows it begins to make more sense. At any rate, Thom Yorke remarked that most of this album was his attempt at "seduction songs", which helps explain why In Rainbows sounds so romantic, (melo)dramatic, and beautiful-but-with-tinges-of-melancholy. Speaking of the latter, for my money, 'All I Need' is one of the best unrequited love songs ever.

Beyond all of this, though, In Rainbows is Radiohead's most listenable and downright fun album yet. Yorke's voice is at the heart of every song and carries the emotional heavy lifting while the rest of the band deliver on every level. The rock songs rock, the ballads tear at the heart strings, and the other stuff does whatever and sounds cool. I will admit right now that this may not be my favorite Radiohead album, but it's their most accessible and I-wanna-listen-to-it-over-and-over album. I simply can never get enough of it, its melodies, hooks, and sounds burrowing deep into the pop center of my music brain. I mean, I've had it for over a year and it still frequently floats around in my car for opportunistic listening. I chalk most of this up to how great the songs are. Radiohead were always an "ideas" and "sounds" sort of band, but who knew they were a "songs" sort of band, too?? I guess I always have but didn't realize it until now. Witness the clanging percussion and haunting chorus of voices on 'Reckoner', which produces an indescribable atmosphere that I'll never forget as long as I live. Witness 'Nude', finally completed after kicking around since the OK Computer era, and to these ears at least better than all of the previous versions I've heard. Witness the absolutely stunning 'Videotape', which is arguably the best closing song from a band with no lack of great closing songs. That it is the goodbye message of a dying man, ending with the line "today has been the most perfect day I have ever seen", gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. Pay attention to the way the drum loop slowly collapses in on itself over the course of the song...it's one of those perfect touches that you may not notice right away because hey, this is Radiohead's pop album and you don't have to listen close...but give this album another listen and those little details and sounds you've come to love Radiohead for will be there.

Certainly, touring these songs before finishing them, playing at American music festivals like the hippie-ish/classic rock-y Bonnaroo, and being free of their record contract contributed to the sound of In Rainbows. But I don't need to talk about those elements. Of all their albums, this is the one Radiohead release that doesn't need any kind of context or explanation to enjoy. It may not be their best album in my estimation, but we should be so lucky that other bands would release pop albums of such accessibility and enjoyment while still retaining an edge and depth.

Primer Part 9: Thom Yorke- The Eraser

No offense to the Mike D and Badly Drawn Boy fans out there, but I don't think anyone would disagree with the notion that 'Rabbit In Your Headlights' was the best track from UNKLE's Psyence Fiction album. It was a rare glimpse of one of the members of Radiohead working outside of the band and paired Thom Yorke with one of the influences on the sound of OK Computer, specifically lead track 'Airbag.' That is to say, DJ Shadow. At or before this same time, Yorke's fascination with electronic music grew by leaps and bounds until, during the Kid A/Amnesiac sessions, he had all but given up on guitar based music. 2003's Hail To The Thief ably recombined the acoustic/guitar and keyboard/drum machine/loops aspects of Radiohead's music, yet Yorke was left with the itch to pursue his fascination with electronic music. During the long downtime between Thief and the eventual In Rainbows, he did just that.

"I don't wanna hear that word solo" (emphasis added) Yorke insisted of The Eraser, but I'm not sure what else it should be called. If it was a side project or one-off lark, why use his name on it?? Why not stealth release it without his name?? Ultimately, though, the name doesn't matter because you know exactly what you're getting into with The Eraser: Thom Yorke letting his whims run free, producing a bedroom/laptop electronic album. Its ambition, scope, and palette are deliberately reduced from a proper Radiohead album, so those in the audience expecting some sort of secret masterpiece or new direction will be disappointed. The music on here is like Yorke continuining in the direction of tracks like 'Everything In Its Right Place, 'Kid A', and 'Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box.'

The Eraser's success or failure depends entirely on how much you like Thom Yorke's voice. Much as electronics are the brush he's painting with here, if you can't stand the guy's voice then you're going to hate this. As In Rainbows would bear out, during and after Hail To The Thief Yorke had begun to appreciate his voice again, to allow it to be the centerpiece of a song instead of, as during the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions, using it as another element or texture, burying it in the mix from time to time. The lyrics in general are also much more verbose and deal with more specific and personal topics than they had in awhile (this, too, points the way to the borderline traditional and romantically inclined In Rainbows).

So, yes, this album is like being locked in a room with Thom Yorke and a healthy supply of samplers, loop machines, laptops, keyboards, drum machines, and a microphone. If that idea thrills you, then The Eraser is for you. The less experimental, hardcore, and noisy elements of influences like Aphex Twin and Autechre are prominent and the best hint of the sound here. The title track lurches to life with staggered piano chords and a minimalist drum machine backing. 'The Clock', appropriate to its title, sounds like a time piece malfunctioning, with glitches and cut-up loops creaking in and out, Yorke's voice sailing through the typhoon and giving us ground to stand on. 'Black Swan' apparently samples some recordings done by Radiohead and sounds the least "solo laptop electronic album" of the nine tracks, with what is probably a guitar(!!) laying down a sidewinding rhythm. Meanwhile, Yorke warns us that "you have tried your best to please everyone, but it just isn't happening."

Taking his own advice with this album?? You decide.

The Eraser is an odd bird because it's weirdly thrilling in a microcosmic way. Something about those sluggish keyboard chords on 'Atoms For Peace' sits in my head and won't go away. Every song has one or two things that will fire up the pleasure centers in your brain, but nothing about this album is majestic, anthemic, or stunning in the way Radiohead's albums are. Not to mention that there's a downside and an upside to having an album with a consistent 'sound': it's great, because the songs work well together and there isn't a dud in the bunch, but it's bad because none of them strike me as especially outstanding and this is the sort of music you have to be in the mood for. The Eraser demands headphones and quiet contemplation; though electronic, it isn't electronic in a dance music sort of way.

It was only recently that I got around to The Eraser and I suspect it will remain that way for Radiohead fans of the future. It's the sort of solo/side project release that you're aware of and eventually pick up, and you enjoy it a lot, but it doesn't fill you with the same sleepless fascination that full blown Radiohead albums do. It's a good little bedroom/laptop electronic album, in the end, and reminded me, at least, just how much I love Yorke's voice in any context: DJ Shadow collaboration, PJ Harvey and Bjork guest appearances, inside the Radiohead context, or on his own.

Album Of The Week/Primer Part 8: Radiohead- Hail To The Thief

As Radiohead had already released three albums by the end of 2002 (assuming you count the EP/mini-LP live album I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings), it was particularly surprising to me when Hail To The Thief came out in the summer of 2003. For a band with a reputation for being studio rats and perfectionists, it seemed to be a adjustment of the celestial order when the band took four years to deliver another album. I picture some winged creature bathed in light saying to itself, "ha ha, that'll teach those Oxford-ites for trying to keep up a Beatles-esque release rate!!" But let's set chronology and celestial beings aside for a moment and consider Hail To The Thief as a point in Radiohead's career that is important for almost every reason but its statement and musical experimentation. This was perhaps the first album in Radiohead's career that didn't seem to have some major artistic thesis, some major change or development to offer. I think some reviewers drug it over the coals for this; hey, Radiohead were supposed to make albums that changed the world, weren't they??

If Hail To The Thief sounds like a victory lap, a consolidation of everything that made the band great up 'til that point, than it's not a bad thing. During the sessions for this album, Radiohead were riding high on the good will from the Kid A and Amnesiac albums as well as what Ed O'Brien described as a "swagger" that the band developed on tour. Combine all of this with the fact that Hail To The Thief was recorded in a fairly short period of time (apparently, most of the songs were finished in two weeks), hardly the year or three birthing process of Radiohead of old. And the thing was recorded in a Los Angeles studio, of all places, hardly the sort of locale associated with the glowering English band.

So here's the score so far: an album that consolidates all of the strengths of the band; an album that was recorded coming off of successful tours during which the band had developed a "swagger"; an album that was recorded in sunny LA; an album that was recorded in a short amount of time. Would Radiohead go pop?? Would Radiohead return to the anthemic alt rock of The Bends??

Well, not so much. But kind of.

The immediate impression of Hail To The Thief is that it is both more of a guitar oriented album and more of a full band sound than the Kid A/Amnesiac recordings. This much is true, but the band have not forgotten the lessons of those albums. This album ably makes use of keyboards, loops, drum machines, and other experimental elements alongside the guitars and pianos of old. The difference is that Hail To The Thief has a more "live" sound to it. It is an immediate and sprawling album that leaves only a few details and secrets to pick up on subsequent listens. If and when there all those electronic elements, you get the impression they were played "live" in a room with the rest of the band. Which, apparently, is how it was done, at least according to the always dubious Wikipedia.

Forget the alternate song titles and oddly memorable signs-making-up-street-maps artwork and Hail To The Thief reveals itself as Radiohead's most self assured and effortless album. There is indeed a swagger about it, a drunken headlong rush that may not make for Radiohead's most accomplished or groundbreaking work but is still worthy to stand alongside their best.

That's because it was at this point in their career when they had many tools at their disposal and began to focus on making fantastic songs with a confidence and power that it always felt like the band never knew they had. This sense of swagger, confidence, and "focus on the songs" would be more prominent on 2007's In Rainbows but it is here, too. Hail To The Thief is Radiohead's longest album but there isn't a clunker here; frequently one is pleasantly surprised by interesting twists and unexpected turns, whether it's the towering drum intricacies of 'There There', the short-but-touching 'I Will'; the emphatic "raindrops" chant of 'Sit Down, Stand Up', the guitar led groove of 'Go To Sleep' which picks up where 'I Might Be Wrong' left off; 'We Suck Young Blood' with its absurd handclaps and a sneaky breakdown at the 2:51 mark; and finally 'Myxomatosis' with its thick, blaring dance club keyboards and Yorke's free floating vocal performance that winds in and out of the song. Trent Reznor's last two albums as Nine Inch Nails to date--Year Zero and The Slip--may not be as well known or surprising as The Downward Spiral, but there's a sense of confidence, swagger, and almost fun about them. The same goes for Radiohead's Hail To The Thief and In Rainbows.

Hail To The Thief is neither a revolution nor an evolution. Rather it is a kind of lateral step, the sound of Radiohead ceasing to fret about what they're doing and instead merely enjoying the simple process of making music together. It isn't as light hearted and lean as In Rainbows and it isn't as important/surprising as OK Computer and Kid A, but it is still a really great album.

Primer Part 7: Radiohead- I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings

Radiohead began this decade like a shot, releasing three things before 2002: Kid A in 2000 and Amnesiac as well as the live EP/mini-LP I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings both in 2001. My impression at the time was that this was a reminder to the fans that Radiohead were indeed still a rock band; even if their newest albums had been stripped down and experimental, they remained an awe inspiring live act. I saw Radiohead in the early Fall of 2003, after the release of Hail To The Thief, and I can tell you that the in-person-experience exceeds the slices presented on I Might Be Wrong. In thinking about that concert and returning to this live document over for the past few days, though, it's occurred to me how important the tours during the Kid A/Amnesiac era must have been for the band. If all of the members weren't always playing on every song on the albums, trying to present those songs live enabled them to change, add, or delete elements, giving every Radiohead member a chance to help shape the sound for an audience.

Radiohead are a great live band but they aren't a great live band in the way that Phish or Animal Collective are. They don't change the songs too greatly, they don't segue them together, and there is no true improvisation going on. What they have is an energy and power that is almost astonishing. The songs are played almost exactly as they are on the albums, so if you're going with the expectation of some musical journey or epiphany, someone has been lying to you. The songs from Kid A and Amnesiac are the most surprising and interesting ones to see live, in my opinion, because each member doesn't have the usual role to fulfill. I think of Radiohead as fundamentally a rock combo unit--singer, guitarists, bassist, drummer--but when they approach the songs of Kid A and Amnesiac this goes out the window. They couldn't reproduce all the elements of those albums live, and at times they need to add or change things as well. This is why I find I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings so fascinating, because it approximates what Radiohead would be like if they approached all of their songs in a live show with more of a liberal attitude.

'The National Anthem' begins this EP with scorched Earth throttling, noticeably faster and dirtier than the studio version. The bass is coated in fuzzy distortion, the drums a bit more breakneck, the horn section replaced by eerie and screechy electronics. 'I Might Be Wrong' is similarly faster and dirtier with more a pounding beat. 'Idioteque' is a true rave up, ending abruptly as if everyone collapsed from imitating Thom's seizure dancing. 'Everything In Its Right Place' sounds like a live remix; when I saw the band in 2003, they ended the show with it, the band members slowly leaving the stage one by one while Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien continued to fiddle with nobs, looping and distorting samples of Thom's voice and the sounds of the rest of the band. Of most interest to fans will be 'Like Spinning Plates', an acoustic piano take on the eerie backwards electronic experiment of the album version, as well as a performance of the unreleased ballad 'True Love Waits' (which is mostly unspectacular despite what most reviews say, though I do like the line "I'm not living/I'm just killing time.")

Like everything they've released after Pablo Honey, if you're a fan of Radiohead you'll want this live release in your collection. It does leave one desperately hoping for a full fledged live album or DVD (rumors are floating around of something along the lines of the latter, probably taken from their performance at Bonnaroo a couple years ago), but taken on its own terms this is an excellent release. It proved that Radiohead were still a band and also still a great rock band. Their next release would see the band letting this feel slip back into their studio work as well.

Primer Part 6: Radiohead- Amnesiac

With hindsight, it must be said that it's too bad that Radiohead didn't release Kid A and Amnesiac on the same day. Since the two albums are from the same sessions and the band had toyed with the idea of a double album, they should've shoved the two releases down the record company's collective throat. It would've changed a lot about the reception of both of these dense works, but I think it would have worked in Amnesiac's favor, spared it the fate of being known as "the leftovers from Kid A." Even today I wonder about people who are just getting into Radiohead, who might hear Amnesiac before Kid A, or at least hear them concurrently. For my part, it would be futile for me to pretend that I didn't experience the eight month wait between the releases, didn't hear them with that sense of separation and expectation.

With that in mind, if you're just here for the Consumer Report's angle, know that Amnesiac as a whole is not better than Kid A. It is, however, a very, very good album and expands on everything Kid A did. There was some talk after Kid A's release that the "next album" would be more of a return to the guitar based rock of previous Radiohead releases, but I think this was a miscommunication. When they said "next album" I think they meant the eventual Hail To The Thief and not Amnesiac, the latter of which has tracks that are more experimental as well as some that are more rocking/accessible than Kid A.

Amnesiac has the basic sound and techniques of Kid A--it is just as minimalist, stripped down, and experimental; that rock music but-not-with-the-typical-90s-alt-rock sound--but offers different results. It visits (revisits??) many of the same themes and sounds that Kid A offered..but it has a different atmosphere and feel, doesn't it?? Listen to them back to back. They feel similar but not identical. Well, as I said, that's because this one takes Kid A to both extremes. There are the experimental tracks which trump anything on Kid A for sheer bravery: the jittery machine funk nightmare lockstep of 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors' and the "Thom learned how to sing this backwards and then we reversed the tape of him singing backward to give it a surreal nature" electronic schizophrenia of 'Like Spinning Plates.' But there's also the borderline-dirty guitar groove of 'I Might Be Wrong' and the Smiths-esque jangly guitar rock of 'Knives Out.'

All of this variety comes at a price, however, because Amnesiac is the most disjointed and badly sequenced album in Radiohead's career. It's something you only notice when you compare it to their other works, because it simply doesn't have the same seemingly effortless flow and excellent pacing of a Kid A or The Bends. This, then, is partially responsible for why I don't prefer Amnesiac, but the other reason is two-fold: 'Hunting Bears' is probably the worst track Radiohead has made since Pablo Honey, an asinine and ineffectual guitar wank instrumental, while 'Morning Bell/Amnesiac' is a different version of 'Morning Bell' from Kid A. It's an interesting idea that ties together the two albums, but this one is inarguably inferior even if I still like it.

Which is how I feel about Amnesiac, actually. It's inferior to Kid A but I still like it. Any Radiohead fan needs it. And I can totally understand those who think it's their best work. But for me and the majority, it'll--unfairly or not--always be known as "the thing that came out after Kid A and was even from the same recording sessions but wasn't quite as good as Kid A."

Album Of The Week/Primer Part 5: Radiohead- Kid A

"I don't remember much time playing keyboards. It was more an obsession with sound, speakers, the whole artifice of recording. I see it like this: a voice into a microphone onto a tape, onto your CD, through your speakers is all as illusory and fake as any synthesizer - it doesn't put Thom in your front room - but one is perceived as 'real' the other, somehow 'unreal'... It was just freeing to discard the notion of acoustic sounds being truer."-Jonny Greenwood

In my relatively young life, Kid A was the first major release that felt like what the kids today call a "game changer." It was very different from the rest of the music I was listening to, even the things Radiohead had done before themselves. It was a difficult album in the sense that one had to struggle with it for a time before unraveling where it came from, where it was trying to go, and what, if anything, it accomplished. I had give some critical thought and consideration to music before Kid A, but it was the first album I can remember being so captivated by while still having a hard time getting my head around it.

In retrospect, Radiohead practically had to make this kind of music because with OK Computer they had taken guitar based rock music as far as it could go. The band admitted that they argued frequently and had a lot of trouble deciding on a direction to take during the various sessions that eventually birthed Kid A. Bizarrely enough, the "difficult" and "experimental" Kid A debuted at the top of the charts in America, a moment as surreal as any in history. All of this is kind of strange when you listen to the album now, with 9 years of history behind it, because it feels and sounds like such humble, stripped down, and minimalist creation. This album and its sister release, Amnesiac, are undoubtedly the most experimental and difficult stuff that Radiohead ever produced, but they achieved this not through embracing atonality, noise, or electronic music. Rather it was achieved through paring down songs to only the necessary elements, through allowing the lyrics to grow ever more abstract and minimalist, and through abandoning the dominant 'alternative' sound that had been the primary moving force of rock for over a decade. In allowing themselves to be influenced by the underground hip hop, experimental/ambient techno, modern/avant garde classical music, and then-growing post-rock scenes, Radiohead created an album that was still rock music but didn't have the power chords, distortion, and soloing that most associated with rock music, let alone what most associated with Radiohead. If they wanted to get any further away from 'Creep' than the title track to Kid A, they would have to become another band. With such a popular group breaking their music down and rebuilding from scratch, I would argue that Radiohead helped set the tone for this decade, musically, showing a generation of up-and-comers that you could do whatever you wanted and someone would understand and appreciate it.

Set all of these ideas and historical importances aside, though, because Kid A is a dizzying release bursting with exciting ideas and sounds. You won't even hear anything identifiable as a guitar until the fourth track, the post-modern drift of 'How To Disappear Completely.' And wow, how audacious it was to start the album with 'Everything In Its Right Place': it literally sounds like a remix of a song instead of the song itself, Yorke's voice thrown around in a blender in the background while keyboards build, peak, and peal off. Remember, there's no drums or guitars on this at all. Consider that the two most traditional sounding guitar tracks, 'Optimistic' and 'In Limbo', are joined by a little segue jam sort of thing and don't arrive until the mid-point of the album. Finally, remember that Kid A's most astonishing songs come in the last three, a varied bunch that demonstrate Radiohead's range and ability. First, the electronic throwdown 'Idioteque', which is an absolute beast live. Second, the underrated 'Morning Bell', with one of drummer Phil Selway's best performances supporting everything, a stuttering live-techno thump, not to mention that incredible moment around the 3:00 mark where Yorke starts scat-singing to the beat and the band builds to an electric freak-out. And finally, the beautiful 'Motion Picture Soundtrack', pump organ and all, which has always reminded me of the way The White Album ends with the similarly schmaltzy-but-in-a-good-way 'Good Night.'

It's hard to choose between OK Computer and Kid A. I think that OK Computer is better known and better loved, but Kid A is the more impressive and fascinating work of art in my book. It tries things and goes places that Radiohead had only hinted at before, never settling for an easy hook, melody, or chord change. Nothing is ever obvious about this album and that's what makes it such a rewarding, continually challenging and interesting release. You couldn't legitimately make a list of "best" or "most important" albums from this decade without it on there, and even if you don't like Radiohead, you can't deny the importance of something like Kid A, perhaps the most experimental and "out of left field" album to debut at the top of the American sales charts.

Album Of The Week/Primer Part 4: Radiohead- OK Computer

Kurt Vonnegut wrote five novels before Slaughterhouse-Five and eight after, yet it's the work he will be remembered for always. You may personally prefer other books of his (for me, Breakfast Of Champions is his best), critics may claim that other of his books are underrated and/or that Slaughterhouse-Five is overrated, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a novel that belongs to dictionary entries, short biographies, and lists of "best books ever" or some such thing. It belongs to eternity; it has been and will be taught in schools. Moreover, it was the book that made Kurt Vonnegut a household name, gaining him fame and, if not fortune, then a comfortable life.

Radiohead made two albums before OK Computer and four after, yet it's the work they will be remembered for always. You may personally prefer other albums of their's (for me, Kid A is their best), critics may claim that other of their albums are underrated and/or that OK Computer is overrated, but it doesn't change the fact that it's an album that belongs to dictionary entries, short biographies, and lists of "best albums ever" or some such thing. It belongs to eternity; it has been and will be enjoyed and studied extensively by music listeners and critics. Moreover, it was the album that made Radiohead a household name, giving them fame, semi-fortune, and an uncomfortable life (as evidence by the documentary Meeting People Is Easy and the direction of Kid A and Amnesiac).

I really don't think there's an original angle to approach OK Computer from, review-wise, unless you're just including healthy doses of your history with the album. Like other "best albums ever", such as those by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan, it has been praised, torn down, re-appraised, overrated, underrated, and absorbed into the human psyche. Just as you can hear disparate influences in the music of OK Computer (the band have acknowledged Miles Davis's late 60s to mid 70s electronic phase, Can, The White Album, and Ennio Morricone), it would be difficult to imagine the development of popular and 'underground' music without this album. Arguably Kid A had more to do with inspiring artists to do whatever they felt like during this decade, to follow their inspiration even if it meant alienating fans and critics, but almost everyone has heard OK Computer and understands what it did and still does.

There is everything in the world to say about this album and yet nothing to say. I mean, I still use 'GregRadiohead' as a username online and I've probably listened to OK Computer more than anything else in my life; it'll always be with me, physically, mentally, and spiritually. So, while I could write thousands of words about this album--about its sounds, themes, ideas, what it makes me feel and imagine--I am paralyzed by the possibilities. Even to start with surface things like its perfect pacing and sequencing would carry me off into the verbose night. Anyway, that misses the point. Like I said, this album has been built up and knocked down time and again: rated, overrated, and underrated by all manner of people. It feels futile to pretend there's anything interesting, critically, to say about it.

Yet this, too, misses the point. I don't need an interesting critical thing to say, and you don't need to read it. The only thing you need to do with OK Computer in 2009 is listen to it. Forget all the debates and discourse. Try to hear this album with the freshest ears possible. Remember what makes it so good. Remember the incredible songs, sounds, ideas, and emotions, as powerful and lasting as any "committed to tape" (as the liner notes say) in the history of rock music. Remember that, yes, bands can keep getting artier and more experimental and yet get better at the same time.

If, as I suggested in another review, The Bends can be seen as Radiohead accepting their fate to be one of the best bands of all time, then OK Computer is them not only trying to live up to this but going all the way. To quote Charles Bukowski: "If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is..."

Album Of The Week/Primer Part 3: Radiohead- The Bends

I know it's really obvious what the moment is supposed to indicate, but one of my favorite scenes in all of film history has to be the part near the climax of Return Of The Jedi where Darth Vader looks back and forth between his dying son and his master of many years, Emperor Palpatine. Many other points in the development of this character are probably much more crucial to his story and destiny, but I really feel like this is the moment he's been living toward. There's something thrilling about the way he suddenly picks up the frail-but-deadly Emperor and tosses him down that shaft. It is a powerful moment in which a character holds the reins of fate in his hands: he could let his son die and evil would rule the galaxy, as it has been doing because of something he did, but he redeems himself instead. I don't know why, but Radiohead's The Bends reminds me of this. After their hit song 'Creep' had run its course, the band was left with a choice of their own: to try to repeat that success and do what the record company said, or to follow their muse and make the music they wanted to. In choosing the latter, they, like Anakin Skywalker, were redeemed.

We may as well face the fact that if Radiohead hadn't recorded The Bends they would've gone down in history as a lesser known version of Bush, another popular English band who aped the alt. rock sounds of America. There was no way to repeat the commercial success of 'Creep' and to follow the sounds of Pablo Honey would be just as pointless. Instead, Radiohead seized the moment--they would never top 'Creep' in terms of popularity, so why not make something artful and timeless instead?? I use those words--artful and timeless--very deliberately here because they're exactly what I think of when I listen to this album now. The Bends was the sound of Radiohead discovering that their destiny was for greater things, attempting to seize that destiny, and, finally, achieving it. Without OK Computer and then Kid A I don't think we could call Radiohead one of the most important bands of our time, but without The Bends they couldn't have made those albums and we wouldn't have cared.

It's exceedingly rare to listen to the result of a band realizing they can do so much more with music, stepping up their game in every conceivable area, but that's precisely what this album is. Literally everything about The Bends is better than Pablo Honey: the lyrics are scores more sophisticated and interesting, the guitar playing is more imaginative and at the same time more rocking, the music is more experimental and (for lack of a better word) cool, the cover is better (apparently, a medical dummy morphed together with Thom Yorke's face), and the artwork is better (The Bends marked the beginning of Stanley Donwood's collaborations with the band, an underrated element of Radiohead's mystique). So many things we would come to expect from Radiohead began here that it's dizzying. In fact, they would go so far from here that you effectively forget they were the ones who did 'Creep.' This is a product of them changing so much as to not even be the same band they were in 1992/1993. If you go to see them live and they happen to play 'Creep', it almost feels like a cover they're doing as a lark.

Any fan of rock music from the 90s onward probably owns a copy of this album so I suppose there isn't much sense in drawing this review out. I do want to point out that The Bends features the most extensive use of acoustic guitar of any Radiohead album. It's one of those subtle things I didn't notice until just recently, but it's true. Much as I love the throttling full force of songs like 'Just' and 'Bones', the lovely ballad 'Fake Plastic Trees' and dreamy, spacey 'Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was' show that Radiohead are every bit as good when embracing the acoustic spectrum of sounds. It really leaves you wishing they would let Thom loose on piano or acoustic guitar more often. Or, I suppose, that his solo album, The Eraser, wasn't electronic.

Now I want you to consider that the only criticism I can offer about The Bends is that it isn't even Radiohead's best album.

....uhm, you do own a copy of The Bends, don't you??

Primer Part 2: Radiohead- My Iron Lung EP

Radiohead have made it pretty easy on music critics because their career has had a respectable arc: band gets popular right away; band hates being known for a single hit song; band gets artier and weirder; band releases at least two groundbreaking albums; band settles into elderstatesmen-hood, releasing albums that may not be revolutionary and controversial but are still really, really good. It's kind of dizzying to think that Radiohead have been releasing excellent albums since 1995, a winning streak that shows no signs of slowing down even after the quietly brave In Rainbows release. And this can all be traced back not simply to The Bends, their second album, but to the EP that preceded it, My Iron Lung.

This EP was (is??) only available as an Australian import and collected both versions of the 'My Iron Lung' singles, which came well before the release of The Bends. While it's true that even by 1998 Radiohead were popular enough to cause stores like Best Buy to stock some of their imported singles and EPs, My Iron Lung became a kind of 'hidden gem'/Rosetta's Stone of sorts for the band. On one hand it has six excellent B-sides that fans will eat up, on the other hand it has gone down in history as early evidence of how far Radiohead would take their art. Remember that these songs were coming out only about a year after the release of Pablo Honey. The jump to The Bends doesn't seem quite as great after you've heard My Iron Lung.

Even the more 'traditional' songs on this EP--'Lewis (Mistreated)' and 'You Never Wash Up After Yourself'--show a lot of growth and maturity from Radiohead's debut album. But of course it's the other songs that make this EP so compelling. 'Permanent Daylight' sounds like more of a Sonic Youth pastiche than I remember, but it took guts for a British band to try something like this back then. 'The Trickster' is a fan favorite tune that rocks harder than almost anything Radiohead have laid down since 1995. The dreamy 'Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong' is like a preface of all the keyboards, effects pedals, and experimental elements to come. And 'Lozenge Of Love' has an intricate acoustic guitar part that will surprise listeners who, as I do, primarily think of Radiohead as an electric band.

I'm still hesitant to call this EP a five star affair. It's not as good as Airbag/How Am I Driving?, Radiohead's other well known EP, but it is more historically important. This should be at the top of your list once you've gotten all their albums from The Bends onward, however, because it fills in part of the puzzle of "how did they get from Pablo Honey to The Bends in one move??" by answering "well, they recorded a crackerjack single that bemoaned their first hit single along with a half dozen great B-sides, too."

Primer Part 1: Radiohead- Pablo Honey

Much like the early albums of the Beatles, Pablo Honey lacks a sophistication, timelessness, and artsy polish that later Radiohead albums would have in spades. Going through their discography either backwards or forwards, it always sticks out like a sore thumb. Pablo Honey is very much of its time and hasn't aged very well, its early 90s alt. rock sound interesting mainly for the fact that here was an English band who aped American indie rock of the mid-to-late 80s instead of the on-going British trends of shoegazer and electronica, as well as the nascent 'britpop' scene.

Were I a truly dedicatde fan and Radiohead-ologist, I would dig even further back to the Drill EP or their Manic Hedgehog demo tape. But in the process of re-reviewing all of Radiohead's main works, I've come to realize that sometimes the 'undiscovered' eras of a band are undiscovered for a reason. By which I mean, there's nothing worth discovering here. There are only a handful of songs on Pablo Honey that still hold up, now, in 2009, but even those are more like hints of the brilliance to come than something great in their own right. Radiohead's main impetus in shedding the alt rock sound of Pablo Honey and getting more weird, artsy, and experimental was to distance themselves from the hit song 'Creep', but I've always nursed the notiong that they swore to themselves they would never release another album that was so mediocre and amateurish.

If you wonder what I'm talking about, remember that this is the only Radiohead album with swear words (at least, I think it is), the only Radiohead album with a throwaway like 'Anyone Can Play Guitar', and the only Radiohead album where the bonus hidden track is an edited version of the main single. True, all of this makes the album a little charming for its youth and devil-may-care attitude, but it also makes it a little undercooked and, again, not very sophisticated. A good deal of the lyrics likely embarass Thom Yorke today, just as the things I wrote in junior high and high school do to me. And the music is frequently pedestrian, with little of the imagination and sense of adventure that Radiohead would soon be known for. Only 'You', 'Lurgee', and especially 'Blowout' make this album more than a historical curio.

Yet even as a historical curio, I can't think of any reason why anyone needs this album or needs to hear it. Their next major release, the My Iron Lung EP, is half as long and much more rewarding. You may think I'm being really tough on this album for reasons other than what it is, but even on a good day when I'm feeling joyful and am forgiving of a lot of things, Pablo Honey only rates as a two star experience. No, the fact that I consider the rest of Radiohead's studio albums five star experiences doesn't enter the equation. Pablo Honey is just not very good. Only completionists need apply.

Primer Part 0: Radiohead- Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP

This is going to be an awfully solipsistic, navel gazing review for the most part, so if you're just here for the 'consumer report' type stuff, you can skip down the last few paragraphs.

I'm going through one of those 'transitional' periods of life where you look around and realize you're getting old(er), that you have more responsibilities than you ever have; more opportunities have arisen, and every where you look you seem to notice and feel new things. Every person you pass interests you in some indefinable way. You feel as if you could fall in love and meet that next significant other any day. Something about the weather, the way the sun and the sky looks...you feel like it's trying to tell you something but you can't grasp what. At the same time, somehow, you feel trapped, restless. You are suddenly small and confused, the headlong rush of time a terrifying thing. Personally, these sorts of periods always make me long for the seemingly more simple and well-defined times of my past. And since a large part of one of my jobs entails picking over the things that people have donated to Goodwill in order to post them online on their eBay like site--the memories and physical remains of thousands of lives: their toys, clothes, books, records, etc.--I seem to be stuck in a particularly nasty pool of nostalgia. So, I'm finally going back to Radiohead.

I feel as though I've mentioned this in every other review I've written, but Radiohead were the band (and OK Computer was the album) that got me into music on a serious basis. I had liked, even loved, music before Radiohead but they were the first band that truly engaged me as a listener with ideas and complex music that I had to struggle and work at to understand and appreciate. I'm reading Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme at the moment, and when flipping through the book attached to Airbag/How Am I Driving? it occurs to me how it all reads like excerpts from something he wrote. To think that the 13(!!) year old version of me was grappling with those sorts of ideas, and all the neuroses and pre-Millenium existentialism inherent to OK Computer, is kind of mind blowing to me now. I'm not trying to brag, though. Mostly all I did was fill journals with lyrics and awful poems/stories that outright stole or were heavily influenced by Radiohead.

Indeed, there was a span of three or four years where I listened to Radiohead almost every day. More than once, I didn't feel quite right until I had my 'Radiohead fix.' Some weekend afternoons were given over to listening through their discography up until that point, straight through. I can't do that sort of thing with bands any more, not because none of them are as good as Radiohead, but because I like too much music to be so mono-maniacal. Monogamous with women, polyamorous with music. Anyway, since roughly 2004 I've maintained an unconscious distance from Radiohead. I still think they make incredible music (I'll get around to reviewing In Rainbows soon), and the dozen or so times a year I listen their stuff I love it just as much, but I associate Radiohead with a more innocent, carefree time of my life, when I hadn't had any jobs or girlfriends yet. When I was barely writing anything and just starting to get into books and movies. When almost all of my money went to videogames.

For whatever reason I was compelled to bring OK Computer and its sister EP Airbag with me on the commute to work this morning. Maybe it is just wanting to get a small reminder of what life was like for me from 1997-2003, but I'd like to think it's a kind of renewal; a starting over, if you will. I've experienced so much since the last time I seriously sat down with Radiohead's discography and this feels like how I should bring them into this new 'period' of my life. A younger version of me posted reviews of most of their stuff on Epinions.com, and I believe it's time the more measured, nuanced critiques of mid 20s Greg (or is that GregRadiohead??) are brought to bear. Besides which I find all of this reviews embarrassing and amateur-ish. If nothing else, I've become a better writer in the ensuing years. Well, my reviews have gotten a lot longer, anyway.

So, then: Airbag/How Am I Driving? was an EP released after OK Computer, collecting a good portion of the B-sides from that album. The cover indicates it is a "...mini album aimed at the USA", which is record company speak for "here is a stop-gap release because we wanted more product in stores sooner rather than later." Not that I'm complaining, because it would be much more costly to buy all the singles needed to collect these songs. More importantly, the six 'unreleased' songs on Airbag are all excellent. Pavement were a band long said to have very good B-sides but the reissues of their albums have merely proven that their non-album songs were as every bit as uneven as the average band. Radiohead, though, have fantastic B-sides. You can always see why the B-sides wouldn't have worked on the album but you still need to hear them.

I'm not sure how easy or difficult it is to track down a copy of Airbag these days, but if you're a fan of Radiohead, or you just want more music that's closer to the more traditional, guitar based sound of The Bends and OK Computer, then Airbag is worth the effort and expense to obtain. 'Pearly' is a fan favorite with the unforgettable line "that's how/she got her/sweet tooth/for white boys." Instrumental 'Meeting In The Aisle' more obviously points the way to the post-OK Computer era, a dreamy/spacey piece for synthesizer and drum machine that sounds like nothing the band had done up to that point. 'Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)' nods to the multi-part songwriting style of 'Paranoid Android', an unhinged Yorke admonishing the listener to "sell your suit and tie and come and live with me." And the barnstorming 'Palo Alto', which featured so memorably in the Meeting People Is Easy film--was to be the last recorded time we'd hear Radiohead overtly rock out for a few years.

Returning to this EP and its parent album after a few years off, I'm struck at how consistent and satisfying it is. Here is a companion piece to a legendary (for at this point we can surely declare OK Computer legendary) that is almost as good as the main event. Here is an EP of an album track and six B-sides which are far better, have more ideas and more pay-offs, than the entire recorded output of many bands that have flashed bright in the night sky of music since 1998 but had no staying power. Maybe I am just being overly generous because I'm falling back in love with Radiohead. But, no. I have always loved them and always will. Airbag/How Am I Driving? has stood and will stand as a metric for how I judge EPs and 'companion' releases. It is that good.

Primer: Part 3: Shins- Wincing The Night Away

In 2007, one of the biggest names in the indie rock world released an album to mixed reviews. A controversial album that divided fans, it suggested for some the beginning of the end or even was the end itself. Those who felt this way argued that the band were trying too hard to be something they were not, and how everything that used to make them great was mostly missing.

That album was Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. However, James Mercer of the Shins appears on it, and his band released an album that same year which drew mixed reviews and divided fans, too.

That album was Wincing The Night Away. And it, dear readers, is what we music critics call a "growing pains" album. This is shorthand for any album in which a band spends most of the run time expanding their palette, their approach to music, or similarly experimenting. Typically this results in music that is interesting and different than what the band had done before but is nevertheless not a completely successful transition.

I have to wonder what it must've been like for all those people who bought this one based on their love of the Shins from Garden State and their first two albums. I say this because most of what originally attracted people to this band is absent or played down: their excellent indie pop sound, intractable hooks, and James Mercer's way with songwriting. In its place is an album full of experimentation, patience, and James Mercer's way with songwriting. Er, wait, not that third one.

In all seriousness, Mercer remarked during the PR blitz for the album that he had been suffering from terrible insomnia. This helps explain Wincing The Night Away's frequently delirious lyrics which take one step past the pleasant psychedelia of Oh, Inverted World into the realm of Brian Eno "if it sounds good, it is good" lyrics and Stephen Malkmus-ian "it doesn't have to make sense to be awesome and memorable." I don't know what "and the necessary balloon lies a corpse on the floor/we're p*ssed on far too many sprites/and they're all standing up for their rights" is supposed to mean but I sure like the sound of it.

But the prosecution's case against this album will come down to how un-catchy most of the music is. Coming off of the power pop masterpieces of Chutes Too Narrow, you will likely listen to this one a few times and wonder where all the great songs went off to. Yeah, it's the same band and their sound isn't radically different, but at the same time things aren't the same and the approach has changed. 'Spilt Needles' is the most guilty party, with its whip crack heavy drums and cavalcade of keyboard atmospherics/wails along with a heavily treated guitar. There's also the percussive drum loops of 'Sea Legs' to pick at, as well as the syrupy synthesizer backing of the percussion-less 'Red Rabbits.' And the ominous 'Black Wave', which picks up where 'Your Algebra' from Oh, Inverted World left off. The total effect is that of an indie pop band who made an album that puts a premium on experimenting and pushing themselves to do things differently, to not rely on easy choruses or hooks. If you're looking for a sequel to the first or second Shins album, you'd be best advised to move along.

However, I still find a lot to enjoy on this album. I like the idea that bands are on a continual journey to new and exciting places, so I silently cheer whenever I think about this album. Frankly I'm surprised the band had the guts to do something like this. Don't misjudge where I'm going with this. This album isn't a huge departure from what they had done before; at the same time, while it's good and has some interesting, satisfying music, it still is, as I mentioned earlier, a "growing pains" album. It's different from their first two albums and it's not as good but it promises a lot for the future. Things like the short interlude 'Pam Berry' (with its huge guitar sound), the way 'Turn On Me' slowly offers its delights over a few minutes instead of cramming it all in quick like they used to, and the surprising keyboard solo outro to 'Sea Legs' make me excited for their next release. I never thought I would be interested to see where the Shins go next. After Chutes Too Narrow they seemed destined to release an excellent pop/rock album that was about a half hour long once every 3 or 4 years. In this scenario, their albums would always be good but they would have a steady, unexciting consistency like The Sea & Cake albums have. After Wincing The Night Away, I'm going to get their next album day one instead of "meh, it's just more pop/rock, I'll get around to it someday..."

While Wincing The Night Away is inevitably always going to be known as the Shins's "growing pains" album, one that some fans will enjoy but most will find weak and too different, it's still worth a listen. It may be more enjoyable as a document of where they might go than it is for where they went, but that's not a bad thing. Anyway, if you just want more of the same no one is stopping you from listening to Chutes Too Narrow and Oh, Inverted World.

Primer: Part 2/Album Of The Week: Shins- Chutes Too Narrow

I'm working on a theory that the beginning of every Shins album announces its intention within the first song. Oh, Inverted World opens with 'Caring Is Creepy', which has astral keyboards and is a chugging mid-tempo jangle-pop gem. Wincing The Night Away's 'Sleeping Lessons' has a dreamy keyboard line and James Mercer sounds like he's singing underwater; it takes almost a full two minutes and 30 seconds before the electric guitars kick in and the songs sounds 'full' finally. What does Chutes Too Narrow begin with?? Some clapping, a "Woo!" and a patient acoustic guitar intro that gets punctured by electric guitars 40 seconds in. Before we hit the minute mark we're already in the midst of one of the most rocking and downright raunchy songs the Shins have put to tape--Mercer even manages a scream on the "be ready to remember" line.

Yeah, it's gunna be that kind of album.

Chutes Too Narrow represents a lot of things for the Shins. As alluded to in my review of their first album, this one sees the band fully plugging into the Northwest music scene, enlisting Built To Spill/Modest Mouse producer Phil Elk to help get the abundance of electric guitars on display to sound just right. It also represents the band not only matching their impressive debut but overcoming it; Oh, Inverted World is nearly flawless indie pop and essential to the zeitgeist of this decade thanks to Garden State, but pound for pound Chutes is better. This is an album bursting with addictive hooks and excellent songwriting--Wincing The Night Away is more challenging and interesting to talk about, but Mercer really perfected his way with arrangements and lyrics on this one. Lastly, Chutes Too Narrow represents the band filtering out some of their 60s pop/psychedelic tendencies for something much more akin to the power pop of contemporaries like The New Pornographers. Funnily enough, it was during this same era when Belle & Sebastian were themselves moving toward power pop from their twee/indie pop beginnings. Once again, comparisons could be drawn between the Shins and those Scottish masters. But I digress.

The thing that strikes me most about this album today is just how energetic it is. We aren't quite to the spastic levels of Architecture In Helsinki but we're pretty close. Even the slower songs like 'Young Pilgrims' have a forward momentum to them (I also dig the pedal steel on this track; see 'Gone For Good' for more of the Shins going country). Most of this energy is due to the way the album was mixed, moving the guitars and vocals up front while burying the keyboards and bass. This is easily the Shins's most guitar centric album yet. Thankfully Phil Elk was on hand to capture the results;I say "thankfully" because he is an old hand at capturing these sort of distinctive guitar tones after working with Built To Spill, who also make use of guitars with a very clean, crisp, and slightly reverb-y sound. 'Saint Simon' has some staccato guitar chording as plucked from reggae (or funk) which somehow works in this context even once the band gets to the second half of the song with the angelic 'la da da da da' chorus. 'Turn A Square', meanwhile, reminds me of excellent group interplay in the beginning to the Beatles's 'Don't Let Me Down' only played faster and continuously.

On a side note, 'Those To Come' is such a great way to end this album. It's so reserved and poetic; something about the atmosphere it creates is utterly perfect and makes me think of whistling tea kettles on foggy weekend mornings. It makes me long for a James Mercer solo album whenever I hear it because--especially after the growth shown on Wincing The Night Away--I think he could make a really excellent album on his own.

I wanted to complain that this album is too short, but I only think that when I look at the runtime. Chutes Too Narrow is short and to the point; all excess and flab has been trimmed away. It is an as-perfect-as-we're-likely-to-get-in-this-world power pop album. While it's unclear where they'll go from their third album, Chutes stands as the band's pinnacle and is my favorite of their's thus far.

Primer: The Shins Part 1- Oh, Inverted World

Oh, Inverted World only took on significance and popular appeal years after it was released, which is an odd thing to happen to an album. It was highly praised on its release and it sold well, yes, but it was hardly a blockbuster success. No one was thinking of the band in the terms they do now. Anyway, in my recollection the trajectory and heart of this decade didn't really start to develop until 2003 or 2004, with the rise of websites like Pitchfork and the blog culture. It was another indie rock revolution as had happened in both the 80s and 90s with fanzines and the like, but this one moved faster and reached more people. The Shins were one of the first beneficiaries of this--particularly after the epochal Garden State film (love it or hate it, it's incredibly important to this decade and the youth coming of age during it). It was as if everyone went out and bought Oh, Inverted World 3 years after its release and subsequently decided that good music was worth seeking out since it was easier than ever to find (via the aforementioned websites and blogs) and to sample before buying (via piracy/torrents or things like MySpace and YouTube). When Wincing The Night Away, the first post-Garden State album by the Shins, was released in 2007 it went to number 2 on the Billboard charts and was, more significantly, the highest charting album that their record label, Sub Pop, ever had. Speaking of which...while this decade has seen the further strengthening of well established indie stalwarts like Matador, Merge, Thrill Jockey, and Touch N Go, it was also the decade when Sub Pop re-invented itself from "that grunge rock label" to "that indie rock label." The Shins were one of the first big indie rock acts that Sub Pop collected, including Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes, Wolf Parade, and The Postal Service.

That's a lot of heady stuff swirling around this rather unassuming band and even more unassuming album. And even if most people only bought it because it was "the band who had that song from the one scene in Garden State" it doesn't change the fact that Oh, Inverted World is both one of the most fully formed, distinctive debuts of the decade and one of the best indie pop albums ever released. True, The Shins borrow from the pop/rock/psychedelia of the 60s. True, they sounded enough like indie pop torch bearers Belle & Sebastian to make comparisons between the two inevitable. But, at least on this album, The Shins are weirder and more psychedelic than Belle & Sebastian ever got. Revisiting Oh, Inverted World, I'm struck by how, on one hand, it's as catchy and near-perfect as I remember, but on the other hand, how strange it can be.

I'm not just talking about 'Your Algebra', either. The lyrics are memorably surreal at certain points. Behind all that addictive indie pop are some odd visuals and observations. 'New Slang', "that song from the one scene in Garden State", presents us with the following couplet that I think would disturb anyone who bothered to pay attention:

God speed all the bakers at dawn
May they cut all their thumbs
And bleed into their buns
'till they melt away

As the band are from New Mexico, I'd like to point out that the Southwest has a rich tradition of weird bands, like The 13th Floor Elevators and Butthole Surfers. However, their sound and lyrics remind me more of the Northwest during the turn of the Millennium. In the era after grunge died off, the Northwest became a hotbed of indie rock. Inventive, fascinating bands and musicians who drew from obvious influences but made music all of their own came into being: Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, Elliott Smith, Sleater-Kinney, The Microphones, and so on. Modest Mouse were another pre-super fame in the 2001 era when Oh, Inverted World was release. Modest Mouse used to be an indie rock band who wrote a lot of strange, fascinating music, and as they are thanked in the liner notes of Oh, Inverted World, they were probably one inspiration for the Shins. After all, Isaac Brock was not a man adverse to writing some surreal-but-poignant couplets.

Still, I'd be selling the album under false pretenses if I didn't praise the music. The Shins's second album Chutes Too Narrow is a much more straightforward and rocking release in comparison, but this one is perfect, catchy pop/rock. The electric guitars on it are more jangle than rock, more reverb than distortion. There are both more keyboards and more acoustic guitars than you probably remember as well; the bass playing is normally melodic in the Paul McCartney-style. All told, this is an album without much bottom end. But indie pop never does have that, unless you're Beat Happening. And even then it's only because Calvin Johnson likes his baritone vocals just fine. But I digress. Oh, Inverted World also has the most psychedelic touches of any Shins release though they're subtle and to-the-point. For what it's worth, however, when I saw the band live in '04 they played an extended psychedelic jam intro to 'Pressed In A Book' that came out of seemingly nowhere and set my heart a-twitter. Wincing The Night Away has some arty elements to it and it's nowhere near as immediate as their first two albums, but even it isn't as psychedelic as their first one gets. Songs like 'Your Algebra' and 'Pressed In A Book' represent an interesting direction the band could revisit someday.

We can look back now and say with certainty that the first Shins album will stand alongside whatever other albums you might wish to throw against the wall that we will build one day to define this decade. From the present, we can also say with certainty where the band would go from Oh, Inverted World. But if one examines it in a vacuum, pretends one was back in 2001 and feigns ignorance of the other two albums, the Shins's debut stands up as a truly exciting first release from a band who have an impressively complete sound and aesthetic. Oh, Inverted World does what most great debuts do: it suggests that while this is great, the best is yet to come. It presents a band with distinctive music of variety and consistency, but suggests a few pathes they might follow from here. Downright essential indie pop listening.

Primer: Phish Part 11- Undermind

Even though it wasn't the 'true' last Beatles album, it was hard to resist peering into Let It Be for hidden or overt messages. Paul wasn't dead, OK, but the band was...and why?? First there was the title, a kind of off-hand remark to fans: we're broken up, let it be. Then there was the cover, a series of four photographs showing the Beatles all facing left except for Paul McCartney, who looks straight out at the listener. Coincidence or no, it was McCartney who announced the breakup of the Beatles prior to the album's release. Finally, there's the difficult recording sessions for the album, which was shelved for nearly a year, and then released in a heavily edited and produced fashion. Oh, and the film documenting the sessions and the legendary rooftop concert, but it's not available on DVD yet...but maybe that's part of it, too?? Anyway, while I like Let It Be a lot, it's a mess of an album and it somehow set the tone for other breakup albums. Future fans of other bands would look through the lyrics and the album packages--the liner notes, the artwork, etc.--and compare the music to what had come earlier and try to find a logical pattern to it all.

So here we have Phish's "last" studio album, Undermind. Even though the band are in fact back together after almost five years apart, it's been a long and painful road for fans. While the music released by the solo projects of the four members of Phish has been anywhere from wretched to decent, as with the Beatles, none of it was ever as good as the original band. Though we don't know precisely what the Phish of 2009 will sound like yet, we have had plenty of time to catch up on the Phish of 1983-2000 and the Phish of 2003-2004.

Let's start with the obsessive-fan-picking-apart of Undermind. As with Let It Be, there's much for conspiracy theorists to latch unto. The title became a kind of awkward joke when, a month before the release of the album, Trey Anastasio announced the end of the band, thereby undermining any chance it had at a reasonable critical/fan reception. On principle, some would declare it garbage and heartbreaking; others would decree that it was their best ever and a fitting end. Then there's the album cover, so obviously styled after Let It Be you have to wonder if they knew it was going to be their last album. Notice that Mike Gordon faces to the left while the other members face right--though Trey sort of faces forward, too. Rumors say that Mike fought hardest for the band's survival. Lastly there's the various lyrics of the album which sound like veiled or direct communication about the band and the fans:
1) "The time has come for changes, do something or we will." ('Crowd Control')

2) "Now waters run free/no more fish in the sea" ('Two Versions Of Me')

3) "'Cause I need some protection/And I'm scared I could lose it/If I stare, you'll be gone" ('The Connection')

4) "I've got no answer but you've got no call/Just can't compete with the weight of it all" ('Army of One')

Intentional?? Probably not, but they're interesting coincidences, and that's the most we can ask of the world sometimes.

All of Undermind has a dark, introspective feel to it. It's a suffocating, cabin fever, late winter kind of album and I find it hard to listen to. Even the lighter tracks like 'The Connection', 'Access Me', and 'Grind' are tinted by darkness. I'm generally a fan of dark, introspective, and/or experimental music, especially for Phish, but just having those qualities doesn't make for brilliance. Undermind is overrated, to cut to the chase, and nowhere near as good as some of the reviews made it sound at the time. The one from Rolling Stone always sticks in my mind because of how off the mark it is. All you need to know is that they call 'The Connection' "the most commanding song of [Phish's] career." I don't hate this song, but it's the most weak and pandering pop song the band ever wrote (and a sign of things to come with Trey's often troubling and bland solo career, but that's another topic). When I think of "commanding" songs from Phish, it's things like 'Seven Below', 'You Enjoy Myself', 'Ghost', 'Down With Disease'...songs that immediately let you know you're listening to something unique and special, that sounds like nothing you've heard before but still makes sense. By contrast, 'The Connection', as an astute ex of mine once remarked, "kind of sounds like the Lemonheads."

This was not meant as a compliment.

By any account, 2004 was a bad year for Phish. They began the year with a strong New Year's Even run in Miami and then decided to play four shows in Vegas in April. Much speculation places this as the time when the band decided to break up. Trey's voice was absolutely shot for these three shows and rumors suggest he was partying too hard--or maybe he just had a cold but didn't want to call off the shows. Then came the announcement of the break-up and a summer tour that garnered mixed reviews though produced arguably some of the best improvisational playing of the band's history (the two shows played at SPAC in New York are incredible, while the Hampton show is a misunderstood and secretly great show with a bizarre setlist and unfortunate pacing). The band wound down the clock with a tour closing stop in Vermont with Coventry, a two day festival that is reviled by a good majority of fans both for its handling and the performances. The poor weather meant that a good deal of the fans had to be turned away from the grounds while many, many more, not wanting to miss Phish's last shows, walked miles in the mud to get there. As if to rub salt in the wound, the band were frequently sloppy and often flubbed the composed parts of songs. This is forgivable since it was their "last" show together, and they did get very emotional on stage, but one wishes they hadn't built up so much pressure on themselves. After all, their previous "last" concert, October 7, 2000, featured no talking or comments by the band, and was instead a finely played and thoroughly professional show. Phish's last show shouldn't have been marred by bad weather, poor planning, and weak, emotionally wrenching but musically weak playing.

I would normally try to disassociate all of this from discussing the music of Undermind, but I feel like it's central to the problems with the album. The songs aren't awful, but they aren't very good, either. Other than 'Scents & Subtle Sounds', the release lacks any ambition or experimentation whatsoever. Simplifying your sound is all well and good, but simplicity was never Phish's strong suit in terms of songwriting. Round Room is, more or less, just as simplistic song-wise, but the songs had character as well as improvisation to give them heft and interest. Undermind is Phish at their safest, and while it's admirable that they tried to make another pop album after the mixed reviews for Round Room, they forgot that nobody likes them for their pop music. Sorry, but it's true. Phish are good at playing this kind of classicist pop/rock and classic rock, especially in their choice of covers, but they aren't great at it. The most interesting things on Undermind are an excerpt of a studio jam, 'Maggie's Revenge' (a dark, snarling monster that is a slim glimpse of the impressive, electronic, psychedelic, and collective improvisational sound of Phish live in '03/'03) and 'Grind', which is a barbershop quartet number that dates back to the mid 90s. Meanwhile, the playing on the album is unimaginative and feeble. Never mind that there's no generous room for collective improvisation: the solos aren't very good to boot. It's sad when the best solo on a Phish album comes from a guest, although Ray Paczkowski's Fender Rhodes playing on the title track is a definite high point (and one can see why Trey plays with the man in his solo ventures).

I never thought I would call a Phish album forgettable but Undermind doesn't leave much of an impression. It's never stuck with me. The tracks have a--yes, I'm going to say it--generic and same-y quality that defies my expectations in a bad way. I don't think Rift or Hoist work as studio releases but at the very least their songs were unique and memorable even if the ultimate result was a mess. This album takes things in the opposite direction, leveling out everything to a flat plain that I find borderline bland. If it were a case of a band sounding too much like itself, it would be one thing. But to sound like a lot of other, much more boring music is troublesome. For a band who began their career somehow merging the psychedelic improvisation and love for American music of the Grateful Dead with the odd sense of humor and prog rock instrumental heroics of Frank Zappa, Phish journeyed way too close to easy listening and adult contemporary with Undermind. It's not a fan's position to demand anything from the band, but which would I rather have: Phish being who they are and playing to their strengths (Round Room) or trying to push themselves in the wrong direction and ending up weaker for it (Undermind)??

If this review has been overlong and bitter, it's only because I love Phish so much and find Undermind such a poor representation of the band and what's great about them. It occurred to me just now that it's my least favorite of all of their albums, live or otherwise; relativity may be in effect, but that low ranking should say more than I could with a review twice as long. This album might not be as embarrassingly awful as Trey's solo album, Shine, but whenever I listen to this CD in my car I pretty much only listen to the title track, 'Maggie's Revenge', and 'Access Me.'

There's a tendency among hardcore fans of any band to say things like "it's my least favorite song/album of their's but it's still better than 99% of what else is out there." I've always hated this mentality, because even though I wear the hat of a Phish cultist, there's simply too much other great music out there to be so single minded. You're better off with any other release of Phish's than this. No, it's not better than 99% of what else is out there, dear reader. But here's hoping for the next one...

Primer: Phish Part 10/Album of the Week- Round Room

Phish played their last show before going on a "hiatus" on October 7, 2000. In mid-August 2002, they announced they would be returning to the stage for a set of four New Year's shows; then, in late October of that same year, more good news: the band were loving their rehearsals so much they decided to release the results as an album. So it was that before they even played a reunion show together, they had a new album in stores. Round Room was the first real taste of the 'new' Phish and reviews were mixed. It was too long. It was sloppily produced. 'Mexican Cousin' sucked. 'Friday' sucked. They didn't sound the same, especially Trey's guitar. Then, more bad reviews: the New Year's Eve shows weren't terribly interesting and the subsequent winter tour was too short and uneven. Though the summer tour is highly regarded and bits and pieces of remainder of the era called 'Post-Hiatus Phish' are much loved, Phish in '03 and '04 just wasn't the same. In late May of 2004, mere weeks before the release of their next album and the start of their summer tour, the band announced that they were breaking up for good, with these dreaded words from Trey punching fans in the gut, fans who were having their favorite band taken away for the second time:

"For the sake of clarity, I should say that this is not like the hiatus, which was our last attempt to revitalize ourselves. We're done."

Yet here we are a little over four years after that and the band are getting back together to perform in March. What a world. Some buzz has developed over whether or not they'll record and release a new album before the shows, and so I find myself having the same excitement that fans did 6 years ago: potential new material from my favorite band.

I've always loved Round Room but I've never been able to articulate why. In writing up the short history of this album and post-hiatus Phish in the preceding paragraphs, I think I finally can explain why. see, Round Room is the most uncompromising studio album Phish ever made. I suspect the only reason Elektra released it was because they were desperate for something that wasn't the expensive-to-produce and probably-not-very-profitable Live Phish archival series. When I say uncompromising, what I mean is, it's the sound of a band playing only for themselves, to show off the songs to each other and to learn them, and then deciding to release that to the public. Though it's cleaned up and doesn't sound like a bootleg, it still has the sound of the first grasping attempts to get through a proper version of a song without the lifelessness that comes with running through the same song over and over. If you believe the liner notes--and I guess we have to because they have no reason to lie--Round Room was recorded in only four days.

Furthermore, there's no consideration given for radio play or winning new fans. I wondered why the band even bothered with 'The Connection' from Undermind; it's an OK song, but Phish are living in a dream if they think they're ever going to have a hit song or convert many millions more into fans from a hit single. Anyway, Round Room is a return to the very early days of studio Phish when the silly songs and long, winding instrumental passages and jams were left on. 'Mexican Cousin' and 'Friday' are reviled by fans--and I agree they sometimes destroy the flow of otherwise good shows--but if taken at face value, you warm up to them. 'Mexican Cousin' is a jokey drinking song and anyone who's seen Bittersweet Motel will understand its intent. 'Friday' is a tongue-in-cheek ballad; thank God they didn't remove the accidental laughing or we might've taken it seriously.

Speaking of accidents, Round Room is charming in its lack of a proper studio production. These literally are rehearsals edited into an album, the sort of thing a band might do and then take to a 'real' studio to make proper versions of. What we get here is Phish doing something they've never done before in the studio: flying without a net. Even The Siket Disc, an improvisational studio album, was heavily edited and finessed. While I'm sure they did a lot of takes for these songs, they weren't thinking of them in terms of 'takes.' All the foibles of their singing and playing are here. Some tracks even have outright bad technical problems with production, most likely due to bleed over or sloppy editing. You can hear an extra track of guitar on some songs (particularly 'Seven Below') and if you pay close attention to the chorus of 'Pebbles and Marbles' there's a weird bleed over that sounds like drums. Yet I'm willing to put up with this minor problems because Round Room is a great set of songs played very well. Phish would go on to play mind blowing versions of most of the major 'jam' tracks from this album but unlike the rest of their studio output, I think these versions stand up, too. Along with invigorating studio improvisation, Round Room has a nice set of ballads, too. In fact, they were recording better ballads without trying than they did when trying really hard. Maybe I'm just a sucker for slow songs and new stuff, but 'Anything But Me' and 'All Of These Dreams' are better than 'If I Could' and 'Waste' if only because they feel organic. They're ballads but they don't sound like old fashioned ballads written to fill the purpose.

And somehow that's the crux of why I think Round Room is so special and deviously underrated. All of the other Phish studio albums have a feeling of 'holding back' and pristine production, two things that don't play to the band's strengths. Some of their studio albums are good, a handful are great, but none of them sound and feel quite like this one, which is the most honest and--here's that word again--uncompromising Phish studio release. It's a here-it-is, as-it-happened, take-it-or-leave-it proposition and a risky one, indeed. While I can't recommend it to newcomers for that reason, it's paradoxically the most representative Phish studio album since it demonstrates an important truth about the band: the parts between the choruses and bridges are just as important as the choruses and the bridges themselves. Improvisation and composition aren't mutually exclusive; even when they aren't singing they're still talking to each other and to you. You just have to know how to listen. Round Room will teach you, if you let it.

Primer: Phish Part 9- Farmhouse

In the CD tray of Farmhouse, there's a picture of the four members of Phish in the middle of a huge snowy expanse, staring up at the camera which is high above them. It's a pretty picture but it also helps to identify the dichotomy essential to the album: the warmth and closeness of the four men versus the loneliness and isolation of rural Vermont. The album strikes a line between the Earthy and the cosmic, music equally at home in the frozen winter as it is the sweltering summer.

If Story of the Ghost taught us that Phish still had their eclecticism, then Farmhouse was a reminder that they might be best--studio-wise, anyway--when they concentrate on a cohesive set of songs. As the album title belies, Farmhouse focuses on songs of rustic character; laid back, country-tinged, and bouncy, these songs borrow from a tradition of Southern rock that borders the jam band scene via bands like The Allman Brothers. At the same time, there's a bit of a funky vibe carried over from the Ghost era, most evident on the danceable throwdown 'Gotta Jibboo.' Yet there's an underlying introversion and cosmic feel to the album at the same time. This makes sense to me, though. As someone who's been out to the country and stared up at starry skies on clear nights, it's often when you're in the middle of nowhere that you think the most about your place in the world and the universe. Insignificant only begins to approach how you feel. And so comes the religious commentary of 'Bug', the death metaphors of 'Dirt', and the socio-political-philosophical searching of 'Sand', which has a spacey/electronic sound that is the closest Phish ever got to techno.

It's worth mention that the recording of Farmhouse bookended the end of the Millenium for Phish, who spent the last month of '99 touring and then performing a 7 hour marathon concert on New Year's Eve. Known as Big Cypress, this 'festival' performance is legendary in Phish lore and is largely sighted as the reason Phish went on hiatus in the fall of 2000....and again in the summer of 2004. If you're the conspiracy theorist type, it's easy to read a lot of doubt and confusion, specifically about the band and the 'scene' that follows it from town to town, into the lyrics of Farmhouse.

As it was Phish's last studio release before their first hiatus, I think Farmhouse has a lot of baggage associated with it, just as Undermind would in 2004. Another parallel is that Farmhouse contained the band's biggest hit, 'Heavy Things', while Undermind would have 'The Connection.' Both are unrepentant pop songs and both are better than hardcore fans are willing to admit, though I myself went through a period of loathing them just on principle. Anyway, listening to Farmhouse without any context other than the band's other studio releases, as I've been trying to, I think it's underrated. It's the closest they've gotten to another Billy Breathes kind of album in which they produce a succinct, warmly produced record that will stand the test of time. Farmhouse might even be a bit more interesting to the average listener since this and the future Round Room contain much more successful slow songs while also having some fiery playing (the latter release has the first honest-to-god jams on any Phish studio album post-Lawn Boy). While I love Billy Breathes, I feel 'Dirt', 'Sleep', and the unashamedly gorgeous instrumental 'The Inlaw Josie Wales' are better grist than the ballads that came before.

Farmhouse is one of those albums I've gone back and forth on, but not in a "is it good or does it suck??" kind of way. Rather I've never firmly held to whether it's a five star or four star release. The more I've listened to it, however, (especially with the further context of 2002's Round Room and 2004's Undermind) it seems to have gotten better with age. Were there no Billy Breathes, Farmhouse would be the masterpiece of their studio output, whether you're a fan or not. In that regard it deserves five stars and fairly earns every one.