Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #16

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Recaps: 100-75, 74-50, 49-25

Radiohead- The National Anthem (2000)




"Everything in its Right Place" was one of the most baffling album opening tracks in rock history, but in order to make the Kid A experiment work, Radiohead needed a song that could link their new direction with the band that produced "Creep," "Just" and "Subterranean Homesick Alien." Enter "The National Anthem," a song with as much of a satirical bite as anything in Radiohead's notoriously hostile catalog. Colin Greenwood's scathing bassline was the only traditional pop touch on the album, and upon first listen in 2000, it would be easy to think "this is where the band returns to normal." It ends up not being normal in the rigid structures of pre-electronica pop, but normal in what music is supposed to do in the first place-please you with sound, and bring you to a new state of mind. OK Computer had been an attempt to move beyond the star lust and electioneering that had come to dominate rock by the end of the 20th century, but because it was so good, it only made the star lust worse. So Radiohead stripped every pretense of vocals-guitar-bass-drums-verse-chorus-verse rock out of their sound, returning music to its spiritual roots even while fully engaged in the technological tools that have made that spirit increasingly rare. As ironic as kids raised on Radiohead would become, if this song would actually become the national anthem one day, it wouldn't be all that ironic. Radiohead would be wise to return to this song's lesson themselves; the only reason I haven't placed this song higher is the self-righteous promotion of Kid A's greatness that has caused "Everything In Its Right Place" to appear on these lists more often.

Labels: 2000s, lists, pop music, Radiohead, songs of the decade, the national anthem

SONGS OF THE DECADE #42

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

Radiohead - All I Need (2007)



What happens when the best band of the worst half-decade in rock n roll history (and one of the best half-decades in American history) has to deal with the fact that boring people aren't really the biggest enemy anymore? You can turn to generic Bush/Blair bashing, as Radiohead did on Hail to the Thief, or you can mature your art at the same time you do your part to overthrow larger economic forces.

In Rainbows will always be tied to its legacy in the music industry, and its artwork will get overlooked by the fact that it didn't "innovate" as much as Radiohead's previous albums. Picky picky. It would be easy to overlook the fact that, musically, In Rainbows was one of the more all-encompassingly great Radiohead albums, and the crown jewel is "All I Need," a pop song that tones down Yorke's self-righteousness for a much darker, nuanced love song. Take time to listen to "All I Need," and you'll realize guys would be smart not to play with a girl over, and girls would be smart to run away if she heard a guy play it.

Despite the band's fantastic musical prowess (most of which is more Greenwood than Yorke), it wasn't really until In Rainbows that Radiohead reached an emotional range beyond teenage angst. Considering that Thom Yorke just turned 41, that makes him an appropriately mature spokesman for his generation.

Labels: 2000s, all i need, lists, pop music, Radiohead, songs of the decade

Image via Wikipedia

Few music videos have ever drawn as much endless debate, controversy, and mystery as Radiohead's "Just." One of the highlights of their second album The Bends, the album that established Radiohead as international leaders of anthemic alternative rock,"Just" is one of the better songs Radiohead ever recorded. Strangely, the band may actually be underrated in the music video department, and none of their video tops their exploration of existential middle age malaise that left the most horrific thing anyone has ever heard unspoken:

"Yes I'll tell you, I'll tell you why I'm lying here... but God forgive me... and God help us all... because you don't know what you ask of me."

Radiohead's video has spawned endless debate among the band's fans, and over the past 14 years the question has never stopped raging on forums across the Internet. But how many of these debaters know of a precursor set all the way back in the 1957, by legendary playwright and Tynan's Anger patron saint John Osborne? Osborne's The Entertainer, his devastatingly brilliant follow-up to his breakthrough Look Back in Anger, followed the fall of the British music hall scene as personified by Archie Rice. Archie Rice was immortalized by Lawrence Olivier's greatest modern performance on both the stage and in the 1960 film. Left out of the film, however, was this particularly fascinating parable in the play's final scene, delivered by Archie after he has lost everything and is giving his pathetically dated performance one last time:

Before I do go, ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to tell you a little story, a little story. This story is about a man, just a little, ordinary man, like you and me, and one day he woke up and found himself in paradise. Well, he looks up, you see, and he sees a feller standing next to him. It turns out that this feller is a saint or something. Anyway, he's on the welcoming committee. And the feller says to him---the Saint---says to him: 'Well,' he says, 'you're now in paradise.' 'Am I?' he says. 'You are,' says the Saint. 'What's more, you have earned yourself eternal happiness.' 'Have I?' he says. 'You most certainly have,' says the Saint. 'Oh, you're well away,' he says. 'Can't you hear the multitudes? Why, everyone is singing, everyone is joyful. What do you say, my son?' So the little man took a look around him at all the multitudes of the earth, spread out against the universe. So he says to the Saint: 'Well, can I get up where you're standing, and take a proper look?' So the Saint says: 'Of course you can, my son' and makes way for him. And the little man stood up where the Saint was and gazed up at the sight around him. At all the Hosts of Heaven, and all the rest of it. 'All the wonder and the joy of eternity is round about you,' said the Saint. 'You mean, this is all eternity and I'm in Paradise?' 'That is so, my son. Well, what have you to say?' So the little man looks around again for a bit, and the Saint says: 'Well, my son?' 'Well,' he says, 'I've often wondered what I'd say if this ever happened to me. I couldn't think somehow.' And the Saint smiled at him kindly and says again: 'And what do you say, my son?' 'Only one thing I can say,' says the little man. And he said it! Well, the Saint looked as if he had been struck across the face by some great hand. The Hosts stopped singing and all the Angels hid their faces, and for a tiny splash in eternity there was no sound at all in Paradise. The Saint couldn't speak for a while, and then he threw his arms round the little man, and kissed him. And he said: 'love you, my son. With all my soul, I shall love you always. I have been waiting to hear that word ever since I came here.'

What's the point of this blog post? I cannot say.

Labels: Bends, Entertainer, high art/low art, john osborne, just, lawrence oliiver, Music video, Radiohead, weird juxtapositions