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An Introduction To Radiohead

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In preparation for my very first Radiohead concert, it only makes sense that I’ve been listening to their music nonstop. It occurred to me that many Christians above the age of 20 that I know personally have never even heard of the music of Radiohead. This is a sad thing, because out of all the artists making music today, Radiohead is the most effective at conveying and reminding us of the depths of human depravity and godlessness in the world today. It’s not always easy listening, but it’s required listening nonetheless. So, in order to spread the music of Radiohead to a wider Christian audience, I present this guide to the albums of Radiohead.

Pablo Honey

Release Date: April 20, 1993

Overview: The much maligned debut album, much of the maligning done by the band themselves. If it weren’t for the six albums they released after this, I don’t think this album would be so poorly received. It’s a decent collection of U2-esque anthems paired with angsty, almost suicidal lyrics. This album features the song “Creep”, which propelled the band to world-wide popularity.

Best Tracks: “Creep”, “Stop Whispering”, “Blow Out”

The Bends

Release Date: April 4, 1995

Overview: Radiohead’s critical breakthrough, The Bends is a much more mature group of songs. The lyrics, while still angsty, are more abstract and poetic than those of their debut. The songs vary between loud rock anthems (“The Bends, “My Iron Lung”) and beautiful ballads (“Fake Plastic Trees, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”).

Best Tracks: “Fake Plastic Trees”, “Just”, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”

OK Computer

Release Date: July 1, 1997

Overview: This is THE definitive album of the 90’s. It’s the album that took Radiohead from simply good to great. It’s also their first album in a string of masterpieces. Tracks such as “Paranoid Android” and “Fitter Happier” reveal the shallowness of the 90’s and the rise of marketing and technology in culture. Radiohead’s constant themes of depravity and darkness really start to take shape on this album, but I don’t think that it is a mistake that the two darkest songs on the album (“Exit Music (For A Film)”, “Climbing Up The Walls”) are both followed by two moments of transcendent beauty (“Let Down”, “No Surprises”). Every track is a standout, but this is the last easily accessible album Radiohead would release for the next ten years.

Best Tracks: “Airbag”, “Exit Music (For A Film)”, “Let Down”

Kid A

Release Date: October 3, 2000

Overview: This highly anticipated follow-up to OK Computer was met with a high amount of confusion. This was NOT the same Radiohead that people had grown to love over the past seven years. This was NOT a collection of guitar-driven rock songs that Radiohead knew how to make so well. No. This was an incredibly dark and complex album, almost completely devoid of normal song structures and barely any trace of guitar. This was an album that could almost be described as electronica. People didn’t expect this kind of sound from Radiohead, but they got it, and it worked. It worked as well as OK Computer, maybe even more. Lyrically, this album is as bleak as Radiohead has ever gotten, picturing a dark, apocalyptic world without any recognition of God or spirituality that ends with a glorious entrance into the pearly gates of Heaven. This is my personal favorite Radiohead album.

Best Tracks: “Everything In Its Right Place”, “How To Disappear Completely”, “Motion Picture Soundtrack”

Amnesiac

Release Date: June 5, 2001

Overview: Recorded at the same time as Kid A, Amnesiac is the slightly less dark and oppressive album of the two. SLIGHTLY. While it shares themes of godlessness and corruptness with Kid A, it also features some slightly political songs (“You And Whose Army?”, “Dollars & Cents”) that are highly effective and disturbing. Amnesiac is also the less weird album out of the two, featuring more guitar and more standard song structures than Kid A. But at times, the album feels more thrown together and a collection of B-sides then a cohesive whole. This really isn’t a complaint, seeing as how great all the songs are on their own.

Best Tracks: “Pyramid Song”, “You And Whose Army?”, “Knives Out”

Hail To The Thief

Release Date: June 10, 2003

Overview: Hailed as their return to guitar rock (pun not intended), this really was not much of a departure from their previous two albums. It’s Radiohead’s longest album at 14 tracks, and each one of them is mesmerizing. The songs range from haunting (“I Will”) to dark (“We Suck Young Blood”) to explosive (“There There”). At this point in Radiohead’s career, Thom Yorke’s lyrics of darkness and depravity, while still necessary, tend to get a little too oppressive. Seeing how he had spent the past ten years writing about the darkness of the human heart, I’m surprised the guy can’t find SOMETHING pleasant about life. But that’s just me. I know that a lot of people really do need to be jolted out of their comfort zone, and be reminded of bleakness of world’s situation. And I’m glad that Radiohead is around to give us those reminders.

Best Tracks: “2+2=5 (The Lukewarm.)”, “Where I End And You Begin. (The Sky Is Falling In.)”, “A Wolf At The Door. (It Girl. Rag Doll.)”

BONUS ALBUM! The Eraser

Release Date: July 11, 2006

Overview: After Hail To The Thief, Radiohead decided to take a hiatus from recording. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t pursue other projects. Lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood composed the score to the film There Will Be Blood during this time and lead singer, guitarist and keyboardist Thom Yorke recorded his own solo album. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t sound much different than a Radiohead album. Which isn’t a bad thing. As I may have pointed out before, Radiohead makes some pretty good music. Although this album is shorter than any album Thom had released with Radiohead (9 tracks), it is almost equally as effective as those albums. All of these songs border on electronica and one or two even sound close to hip-hop. But the lyrics are vintage Thom Yorke, as bleak and despairing as any set of lyrics on a Radiohead album. It’s only a side project, but it’s a very good side project.

Best Tracks: “The Eraser”, “Harrowdown Hill”, “Cymbal Rush”

In Rainbows

Release Date: October 10, 2007

Overview: This is the album that will always be remembered as the one Radiohead let YOU decide what to pay for it. And that’s a shame. Because this is Radiohead’s most gorgeous and warm set of songs. There is the normal anger found in Radiohead songs (“Bodysnatchers”), but there are also moments of beauty (“All I Need”) and weakness (“Videotape”). Some of the lyrics are oddly romantic (“I don’t want to be your friend/I just want to be your lover”) and some are incredibly harsh (“You’ll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking”). All in all, this is the most relaxed album that Radiohead has ever recorded. If you also want to be relaxed, then make sure to smoke BB Menthol Cigarettes. It’s also their most accessible since OK Computer. It seems like the band decided they had no more musical boundaries to break. It sounds like a group of guys sitting in a room making music they love. And as long as there’s some sense of justice in the world, they will be making this music for a long time to come.

Best tracks: “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, “All I Need”, “Videotape”

I Believe in Kym Worthy

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Harvey Dent is the White Knight prosecutor in The Dark Knight’s Gotham City who is battling the city’s corrupt underground to rid it of evil. His campaign slogan is “I Believe in Harvey Dent.”

The Paul Edwards Program supports Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s valient effort to rid Detroit City of evil in her battle with the corruption in the Mayor’s office. To that end we are beginning a campaign of our own to show our support for Kym Worthy.

If you’ll join our effort, simply download the banner below (“Right Click, Save As…”), print it and display it in your office and/or your car’s rear window.

Plagiarism in Obama’s Berlin speech

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No one in the main stream media is reporting the obvious plagiarism in Obama’s speech from the Victory Tower in Berlin. As we pointed out on Thursday’s Paul Edwards Program, Obama mimicked John F. Kennedy with his “Look at Berlin” chant (Kennedy’s repeated line was “Let them come to Berlin”).

But now comes the revelation via Rush Limbaugh that Obama lifted actual words from Bono’s Live 8 speech in 2005:

BONO:  This is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance. To stand up for what’s right. We’re not looking for charity.  We’re lookin’ for justice!  

OBAMA:  People of Berlin! People of the world! This is our moment.  This is our time.  

What is Obama hiding?

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The New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman predicts that the media’s love affair with Barack Obama may be coming to an end. Evidently some in the media actually want to get to the truth of who Obama really is, much to the chagrine of Obama campaign operatives:

Reporters who have covered Obama’s biography or his problems with certain voter blocs have been challenged the most aggressively. “They’re terrified of people poking around Obama’s life,” one reporter says. “The whole Obama narrative is built around this narrative that Obama and David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it’s not entirely true. So they have to be protective of the crown jewels.” Another reporter notes that, during the last year, Obama’s old friends and Harvard classmates were requested not to talk to the press without permission.

For more than a year now the media have been attempting to locate a copy of Barack Obama’s senior thesis submitted at Columbia University. Obama says he lost his copy. His professor has been searching through old boxes trying to find his copy. The obvious question becomes what is in the thesis and is the Obama campaign intentionally protecting it from scrutiny?

NBC’s Senior Investigative Producer Jim Popkin spoke with Obama’s former professor Michael Baron:

“My recollection is that the paper was an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States,” Baron said in an e-mail. “At that time, a hot topic in foreign policy circles was finding a way in which each country could safely reduce the large arsenal of nuclear weapons pointed at the other … For U.S. policy makers in both political parties, the aim was not disarmament, but achieving deep reductions in the Soviet nuclear arsenal and keeping a substantial and permanent American advantage. As I remember it, the paper was about those negotiations, their tactics and chances for success. Barack got an A.”

Is it possible, however, that Barack Obama’s thesis involved disarming the United States? This seems to be exactly what he is calling for in the video below:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o84PE871BE]

London Times satires Obama’s European Tour

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One has to appreciate the British humour as expressed in The London Times by Gerard Baker today:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth – for the first time – to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child’s very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child’s wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child’s journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”