It's My (Radio) Head

Is Radiohead pulling the proverbial wool over our eyes?
I mean seriously, have you listened to Kid A and Amnesiac?

This morning, a radio DJ was talking about how bullshit the group Sonic Youth is. How people claim to be rabid fans just to be cool but Sonic Youth, in his opinion, are terrible.
I wouldn’t know because I’ve never really paid much attention to their music but then he said, “Like Radiohead….don’t even get me started.”
I pondered that for a second and thought maybe he had a point.
I was suckered in to the Radiohead thing several years ago with Pablo Honey and The Bends which I thought had a few really great songs on it.
Then Ok Computer came out and I bought it like a good little lemming and I thought it was good. A friend of mine equated Thom Yorke with a god and said she listened to Ok Computer over and over and over again.
A few years went by and Kid A came out. Again, I ran to the store and got it. I listened to it and thought quietly, “What the fuck?”
For a fleeting moment I thought, “Thom Yorke is fucking with us.”
Kid A seemed to be nothing but whining and instrumental feedback. I had this mental image of Yorke, with his googly eyes, sitting in a recording studio saying, “Let’s see how many of these idiots buy this piece of shit.”
And lots of us did.
But it didn’t stop there. Amnesiac came out and I found myself standing in line, clutching my copy of it, anxiously awaiting the moment I could rip off the cellophane, pry the tape off the outside while cursing the CD manufacturers that make it almost impossible to open one without beating your children or kicking your dog.

Again, I didn’t get it. Maybe I’m just not musically intellectual enough to “get” Radiohead but I thought it sucked.
However, I never questioned why I bought that CD. I just did it as if previous Radiohead album contains some subliminal instructions to buy the next album.
Maybe Thom Yorke is brainwashing a whole generation?

So, this morning, after listening to the DJ diss Sonic Youth and Radiohead, I dug out my copy of Ok Computer and listened to it on the way to work.
It’s really a very good album.
I have this uncontrollable urge to go out and buy Thom Yorke’s newest solo endeavor.

Dammit!