Hail to the brief

This morning I listened to the new Radiohead album on the way to work. The Pitchforkmedia review pointed out an interesting thing – that the days of shared excitement and enjoyment of a new release are well behind us. When was the last time the entire ‘indie’ community got excited at the same time about a new album? One could indeed imagine thousands of people across various demographics sitting by their desks and uniformly downloading the new album in one fail swoop. For nothing. Fading are the days of cds and trips to the local indie record shop – not gone, but fading. I tend to go more for gig tickets than cds – though I must always fight against the terrific urge to start leafing through wonderfully designed bits of cardboard packaging.

The album is satisfying. Not particularly surprising or revolutionary, but satisfying. There are still those gratifying tingling moments of emotional development and suspense. The dubiously titled Weird Fishes has a beautiful development of layered arpeggios and vocal harmonies. Nude is a Radiohead classic, harking back to the days of OK Computer. In fact, this album would have sat quite reasonably as a follow up to that album. Ten years ago.

Hmm. Lyrically, the themes seem more personal and direct than recent years. Fewer esoteric streams of hyperreal paranoid consciousness and more hymns of creeping disappointment and personal failure. There is a difference.

I don’t know. Do I want them to reinvent the wheel? They have set their own bar rather high. More beautifully recorded Radiohead songs seems almost disappointing, like they should be incorporating contemporary dance or musically re-enacting scenes from unpublished early Flaubert novels.