Band of the last seven days - Radiohead

It had to come sooner or later. They don't need any introduction though I may need to explain why I find Radiohead to be perhaps the one band that seem to encompass almost everything I love about music.

How they got to be so popular is beyond me. I never ever expected them to be the behemoth they are now, dividing people into fans and people who don't understand them (this is a joke, obviously). In fact, I despised them once upon a time. A youngster, having heard perhaps one or two of their songs, I remember looking at that hateful artwork on the cover of The Bends, recently released and innocuous, and proclaiming that that was one album that I would NEVER buy.

Since then I've bought it twice; the second time was to replace the scracthed, worn out CD copy I had bought previously. I will buy it a third time on vinyl as it belongs in my record collection of favourite albums of all time.

But why so much love for this rather forlorn - some may say depressing, boring - band? Let's count the ways shall we?

1) Johnny Greenwood's guitar work
At the time I actually started to appreciated The Bends on a cassette copy my friend insisted I listen to, there was one thing that stood out amongst all the high points. It wasn't Thom Yorke's voice - it was always about Johnny Greenwood's (and t, to give credit where it's due, Ed O Brien's) pioneering guitar explosions. Seemingly spliced from blues and rock with an extreme amount of futuristic filters and ideas, his strange lead parts and interesting textural use of a tremelo pedal on tracks like Planet Telex and Bones made me sit up and get very excited indeed. Not only was his playing extraordinary but so was watching him play: long hair obscuring his face, he thrust his strumming arm directly downwards, as if trying to break the strings from pure force. He wore some kind of arm guard so as not to brutalise his flesh. It was an incredible thing to watch. Pretty quickly, my favourite guitar part of all time was that impossible high, pitch-shifted note that rings out and fluctuates in tone for about 5 seconds in Just.

2) Their music is uplifting
Buh? Are we talking about Radiohead? The guys who make "music to slit your wrists to"? Well, yeah. Their descent into despair somehow electrifies me, making me smile and want to celebrate life. Certain stirring moments like the falsetto backing vocals coming in during the second verse of There There, or the climax of Let Down and even the band's self-confessed bleakest song, Street Spirit (Fade Out), when Thom Yorke bursts into the closing coda of "Immerse your soul in love" is both chilling and warming. Their intensive structures, the brilliant musicianship and, most of all, the overall atmosphere of Radiohead's material does nothing but motivate me and make me want to shout from the rooftops and sing all day.

3) Innovation
Sure, even when they were making pretty standard rock songs on Pablo Honey and The Bends, they weren't shockingly original or anything. Nevertheless the ideas, riffs and vocal lines always had something unique about them. Their layering of certain guitar ideas, the directions the songs would take and Yorke's way os seamlessly flowing over it with his sublime vocal range all constituted something different.
By the time OK Computer started messing with the formula a little, Kid A seemed inevitable. The album that turned people off because of it's inaccessibility or got people interested after that boring rock rubbish was a brave and interesting move. Kid A is undoubtedly a brilliant work, which was actually still pretty standard as far as structures went. Amnesiac seemed, in comparison, like offcuts thrown onto a record. Hail To The Thief merged the two styles perfectly while In Rainbows is actually the perfect Radiohead record. Throughout they're messing with ideas, trying to stay away from the bombastic arena rock that makes U2 and Coldplay so tedious. Though often thrown together, it's clear that Radiohead have very little to do with what those bands seem to be about. If anything they ahve more in common with Muse, except Muse are, again, very predictable in a prog-rock for the 00s kind of way.

4) They are NOT flawless
This is important. I am not a rabid, love-everything fan. They've done some attrocious music in their time. I think you can get a better persepective on a band from their mistakes or bad points. In this case Pop Is Dead (terrible, although still enjoyable to listen to), We Suck Young Blood (tedious and griping), How Do You? (similar to Pop Is Dead but less emabarassing), Pull/Pulk (a bit pointless? sounds like machinary running in the back of your mind), Treefingers (nice but ultimately redundant), Exit Music (good, but goes on a bit)....there are other things. However, there are so many high points in their catalogue which makes these throwaway songs seem like studio larks.

5) Albums are most definitely albums
Everything from artwork, presentation to the flow of the tracks. The general exception is Amnesiac, which I've never really felt works as an entire record and a recent listen has confirmed this.

6) Consistency
Each album, with each of their flaws, has an incredible amount of brilliantly written songs on them. Here's what confuses me - the kind of bravery and esoteric ideas, within their own songwriting framework - does not lend itself to commerciality. I mean, why do people like this band on such a scale? I know why I like them, it's all explained above, but their commercial aspect has always and will always buffle me.