Thom Yorke
“But he has cancer…in his ass.” – Thom Yorke
“*Bleep!* *Bloop!* *Bleep!* *Bloop!*” – The next song Thom Yorke is working on
Albums Reviewed:
Thom Yorke is Radiohead’s lead singer. He put out a solo album this year (2006). It sounds like a lot like subtle, low-key, recent electro-Radiohead and not a damn thing like The Bends. I like it, but then again I like subtle, low-key, recent electro-Radiohead too. Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood put out a solo album like three years ago as well, but he doesn’t have a lazy eye, so no dice. Read all about Thom’s album below. I should also mention that Geddy Lee has a horrible voice.
And, onto the review(s)!
The Eraser (2006)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “The
Eraser”
A pleasant little tide-me-over for Radiohead fans eagerly awaiting the next full ‘Head release I guess, but nothing more. It’s also probably the least-surprising new album to come out recently, at least outside of the new Audioslave album that sounds exactly like the other Audioslave albums and I’m still gonna end up giving a decent rating to because I’m an idiot. Seriously, anyone even the slightest bit familiar with the 2nd half of Radiohead’s career (christ, have they been an electronic band for that long now?) is gonna be roughly as shocked by how this record sounds as I was every time Terrell Owens came up on Sportscenter during NFL training camp (“This just in! Terrell Owens rides exercise bike during practice today, then has chicken for dinner! Ed Werder has all the details, including a stool sample from TO that should tell us both what kind of spices he put on that chicken and whether or not he’s getting along with Bill Parcells! But first, let’s bring in Sean Salisbury and John Clayton to berate each other! We also have Mark Schlereth simulating TO’s practice routine on a special exercise bike we’ve had outfitted to match the exact specifications of what TO was using today. Stink, how’s the bike?” “It’s TO-riffic, Rece, but first let’s go to Stuart Scott and Tim Kurkjian, who will be talking about Barry Bonds and the BALCO scandal for the next twenty-five minutes while Tino Martinez mumbles incoherently about Derek Jeter. Stu?” “BOO-YEAH!”). It’s a bunch of minimalist electronic grooves! The whole album sounds like “The Gloaming” from Hail to the Thief! Since no one was around to provide real drum parts, bass lines, or fun, lively guitar parts, there aren’t any! I’ve read that a bunch of the sounds on this were actually left over from old Radiohead sessions, tossed aside because they weren’t as good as “Treefingers” or something! It’s so subdued it makes Kid A sound like The Bends in terms of big, loud emotional catharsis songs! But Thom Yorke made it himself and his voice is still cool so it’s creepy enough to be enjoyable enough that I’ll give it a decent rating because I’m a totally biased Radiohead fanboy! Can I end the review now? I can’t? It’s only one paragraph? That’s not long enough? And I can’t insert another hilarious six-line Sportscenter parody parenthesis? Crap, then.
I really don’t know what else to say about this album. A lot of it sounds like the skeletons of Radiohead songs that could turn out to be something bad-ass like “2+2=5” if the other four guys got their hands on them and inserted some actual instruments that aren’t Thom dicking around with his laptop. But since they aren’t around, unless you enjoyed the really minimalist electronica tracks from the last few Radiohead albums (like “The Gloaming” or “Backdrifts”), then this might not be the album for you. And don’t start saying “Hey, I like ‘Idioteque!’ and that’s an all-electronic Radiohead song!” because “Idioteque” is fun and energetic and danceable (sort of) and fucking bad-ass. NONE OF THESE SONGS SOUND REMOTELY LIKE “IDIOTEQUE.” THEY ALL SOUND LIKE THE GODDAMN “GLOAMING.” The only Radiohead songs I can think of less “songy” than the majority of this record are “Treefingers,” “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors,” and the studio version of “Like Spinning Plates” (because let’s all remember that the live version on I Might Be Wrong is amazing). It also goes without saying that if you’re one of those morons thinks Pablo Honey and The Bends are the best records the band ever put out, OK Computer is “just OK,” and everything from Kid A onward is crap experimentation and you’re waiting for the “real Radiohead” to return, you will despise this album. But you know what? Buy it anyway! And keep deluding yourself that the “real Radiohead” is “Sulk” and not “Morning Bell.” Did you know Thom thinks “High and Dry” is a shitty song? Well, he does. Good thing I love it, then. Fuck.
Oh hell, the album’s fine. I like “The Gloaming,” don’t I? I don’t even remember, actually. I probably do, though. And most of this is at least a little more “detailed” and “fleshed out” than that one, even if the tunes consist of only a repetitive synth part and an electronic drum loop. The melodies are pretty simple, too. Not “sing-along,” at least. Very low-key and depressing-sounding, not that I can tell a damn thing Thom’s saying (except ofcourse when he repeatedly goes “this is fucked-up…fucked-up” in “Black Swan,” a song many people tend to cite as the best song here but I will not do because it sounds just like everything else and I can’t tell the difference. Ofcourse, this didn’t stop me from choosing the title track as the best because it’s the first one and therefore sounds the most “fresh,” but at least the electronic drum loops comes in at a clever time after the synth-piano intro, so sure, why not). And I know I’m rambling and using giant parentheses and blatantly flouting the ideas of actually giving a review “structure” and “having it make sense,” but that’s because there are so few interesting things to say about this record album! Thom Yorke has made a bunch of songs that sound exactly like especially low-key and sparse Radiohead electro-tracks. They’re all enjoyable in their own way to one who enjoys low-key, sparse Radiohead electro-tracks like myself, since Thom’s songwriting is still good enough. However, without the rest of the band around to temper Thom’s, um, “tendencies” and add their own parts to the electronic soup Thom has created, they sound more like half-complete Radiohead tracks than full Radiohead tracks, but at least they still sound like Radiohead tracks, so they still sound fine, half-complete or no. Hell, maybe this is just the band letting Thom get more of this electronic gibberish out of his system so they can make a real return to big, loud, melodic Britrock on their next album! Yeah! Actually no, that’s not happening. Just wanted to get your hopes up for a minute there. The next album will sound exactly like Hail to the Thief did. It will also be better than the next Good Charlotte album.