Boycott Radiohead!
Did you read that Radiohead is talking about not wanting to make any more albums, just random songs?
I say 'Boycott Radiohead' until they make another album!
In the July/August Believer, Radiohead's Thom Yorke states, "None of us want to get into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again....It's just become such a drag.....We've done that now. That's that."
Whaaat?
Reading that made me really mad. I used to like Radiohead. I think they are creative musical explorers, not content to repeat repeat repeat what they have done in the past just to sell records and please an audience. I own some of their records and CDs. I don't really have any favorite songs - they are not pop stars putting out singles - but rather enjoy the flow of their music in each of their collections, their sound, so to speak.
They are - or have been - everything Coldplay is not: serious, ambitious, and enjoyable.
Their full-length vinyl records are beautifully recorded and make a really strong argument for music on vinyl vs. Cds and mp3s.
Until now. From here on, Radiohead threatens to become the no-ambition, singles-only, digital format progressive rock band. No more major album length statements. Just a song at a time. Just a download at a time. Easy for them. Easy for you. Take it or leave it.
Who cares?
Like the Beatles before they released their first real albums. A crowd-pleasing singles band.
Unless we stop them!
While it's fun to put together your own 'mixtape' playlists, album-length collections of songs, sequenced in a specific order, from note to note, song to song, are artists' statements. Think of your favorite records and the first few notes of the first side...think of the great rock records. One song builds to the next like a great novelist weaving a timeless and compelling epic.
Radiohead turning its back on the album would be like Paul Auster saying no to any more novels - "I'm just writing stories from now on - the novel, it's too much work." It would be Pynchon without the novels. Eco with just his essays.
And sooner or later, no more novels!
So, If you agree with me, write to me at vinylrecordarchitect - see the comment window below - and we'll get this 'Boycott Radiohead' movement up an running.
If Radiohead's shortsighted thinking takes off, who knows where it will lead - the end of the record album....or the end of the novel...or...
The end of civilization as we know it.
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not sure what sort of elitist crap Yorke is smoking, but that's one of the lamest things ive heard a musician say.
if youre sick of doing the band thing, just say so...if youre going to focus on solo careers, break up the band.
..don't try to walk away from the game saying how uncool producing music albums is as you fan yourself with money.
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Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. If they are no longer motivated to do the work and lack the ambition and creativeness to put out a full LP, then I guess some Radiohead is better than none at all. And who would want to buy an album filled with clutter, just give me the great songs and leave the rest in the recording studio.
Having said this, I think that are a bit pompous, some may applaud them for going 'against the norm' but I don't and I hope that others don't follow their lead. I like the album concept, and everything that goes with it. Maybe they should challenge themselves as musicians and create the ultimate Radiohead LP, instead of saying- we give up, here's a single, it's the best we have go buy it.
So, I am with you the 'Boycott Radiohead' is a good idea, I will not buy their singles, it is a matter of principle for me. Heck they are not on my list of great musicians anyway, so it will be no great loss. They can keep their singles, I don't want them anyway.
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