radiohead

hail to the thief

‘The rumors from downloading and pirating enthusiasts may be true: It is time for Radiohead to bend over and grab their ankles.

Radiohead’s contract with the devil expired just shy of the “Hail to the Thief” recording sessions and renegotiations must still be in the process of being worked out. It’s a shame this matter could not be resolved a bit earlier. No one wants to hear that a Radiohead record is bad.

If a poorly written computer program was designed to randomly generate music based on the patterns of previous Radiohead songs, it very well could have anticipated the tracks on “Hail to the Thief.” To say the least, they have once again been unpredictable but, this time, they did it by doing what no one could have expected; by being completely predictable.

The band has hit a wall and hopefully that lofty airbag of accrued credits to their name will save their lives. (God, that was a horrible play on Radiohead lyrics.)

Of course any judgment of “Hail to the Thief,” the band’s sixth full-length studio album, is going to be a bit askew. What unit of measurement do you use to gauge the quality of such an album? They have been known to consistently raise the benchmark of musical innovation with each subsequent release. Now, they can easily limbo underneath that bar.

Will a top-of-the-line shortsightedness doom the mediocre to be viewed as minimal in terms of effort and, at points, downright lazy?

In the grand scheme of things, this album is decent. It surpasses the ranks of the generic and makes it to the low-end cut of the medium-quality showroom. If this was a freshman product, it would show great promise and potential. Many artists would even kill to write an album such as this. For the weathered veterans of Radiohead, “Hail” flies dangerously low under the radar they established. With any luck, it will go undetected, leaving hope for any future productions.

Especially at the head of the class, there is no excuse for the senior slide, or for a band to just get by every once in a while.