"Not Really Into Radiohead" - A Story (or Something)

It's Wednesday, the 16th of February, 2011. After class, I head out for pizza with my friend Robin at a little place on Bloor. We've never really hung out that much so there's a lot to talk about, and the topic turns, as it so often seems to, to music. I mention that in January, I started up a music blog, and she beams: "You know what you should review next? Radiohead." Earlier that week, the band had announced the upcoming release of its album The King of Limbs, in a mere week's time.

It had a weird sort of synchronicity for me. I had just bought a recent Q Magazine (yeah, holy shit, print media, what?) whose feature article was "The Top 250 Albums of Q's Lifetime." This stretches back to Paul Simon's Graceland, which they had praised in their first issue, and which my aunt tried to get me to listen to, but when she lent me the CD, the case was empty, so that's on her. Anyway, out of all these amazing albums (including all the usual suspects and some real surprises, both good and bad) the top-rated album, voted by Q's readers, was Radiohead's OK Computer. So yes, good, great, more credible than, say, Tubthumper by Chumbawumba (underrated.)

This is going to shock you, coming from the guy who's taken it on himself to ramble about music on the internet, but: I'm not into Radiohead. Now, it shouldn't shock you, since I've mentioned before that I spent a long, long period of time "not really being into current music," so when In Rainbows was surprise-released in 2007, I was still kinda like "Good for them, but whatever." This isn't out of a lack of support for their music -- I'm genuinely glad they exist -- but it was more me finding my own path. As you know from my previous rants, the last thing I'm interested in is listening to an album others have said is great and echoing those sentiments. So Radiohead's greatness has been well covered, I find something else to listen to. I was content to let them exist as this unknown paragon of musical greatness that had nothing whatsoever to do with me and my tastes. It seemed impossible to get into Radiohead without having to drill through the layers of mystique their music engendered. I'm basically saying I was worried that what I heard wouldn't justify the hype for me.

Something happened in the middle of 2010 -- I'll explain later -- that changed my perspective on this, and basically made this blog possible. And though I'm not always talking about it, this is after all a blog about musical discovery, and it's probably about time I discover Radiohead for myself. Much like the Arcade Fire example I spoke about last week, I won't be hearing King of Limbs for a while yet, and whatever my opinion ends up being, you get my guarantee that it'll just be mine.

I felt the need to say that, because after all the stuff I have already lined up, I wouldn't want people to shy away from this blog thinking "Why the fuck isn't he talking about Radiohead? Everyone else is, this guy sucks."

Maybe I do suck, but at least you know why I'm not talking about Radiohead yet.

If you still hunger for more Radiohead content, I'm happy to endorse this article by my buddies over at Comics! The Blog (although it seems unfair since you never hear me jabbering about Spider-Man.) From a gen-yoo-wine Radiohead fan.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto