A few different ideas could immediately to mind after listening to King of Limbs, the newest effort by planet Earth’s most overanalyzed band, Radiohead.
The Radiohead discography is anything but the musical masters program it is made out to be. The group’s members are not masters of composition, just like they are not masters of innovation or masters of the universe (as we are so often told).
What Radiohead collectively have become, however, are masters of studio production.
It was over a decade ago, now, that Radiohead released the binary bonanza Kid A, and every critic from coast to coast praised the fact that one of this generation’s “great” rock bands immersed themselves in an electronic world.
Misguided, erroneous rhetoric will have the public believe that this tawdry, turn-of-the-century purge was the band trying to express its uncertainty about living in an increasingly digital stratosphere.
But Kid A was anything but profound, and frail lyrics over droning ambience only spoke of Radiohead’s own apathy rather than technology in the Western World.
In truth, King of Limbs represents the first time – yes, first, as in never been done before – that the band has spoken its feelings about the digital convergence happening around them, and it is not uncertain about a thing.
It’s thrilled with it.
With King of Limbs’ sound being as much a result of the intangible interfaces of a Macintosh computer as it is actual, playable instruments it’s not hard to see which pot Radiohead has thrown its chips in.
These five men (along with their lifelong producer Nigel Godrich) have perfected the art of creating samples within rock music.
Though some of Limbs’ tracks see the band going the most natural they’ve been since The Bends, utilizing solo acoustic guitar and piano in certain instances, every track is an extremely well-planned and well-executed hybrid of natural instrumentation and digital interference.
The question that King of Limbs poses is this: Is Radiohead now doing what we’ve been pretending for years? Yes and no.
Yes because for the first time, the band is consistently making good records. In Rainbows, Radiohead’s 2007 album, represented structural progress for a band that pompously denounced order since it’s inception. And no because that would mean that Radiohead was making albums that truly redefined the status quo.
Redefinition and reinforcement are two very different things. This album is just good. Can’t that be enough?
—Andy Collier is a senior studying audio production. If you think Radiohead is generation-defining, let him know at ac165406@ohiou.edu or follow @The PostCulture.
