After taking on warhorses like the Beatles, the Stones, and Springsteen on the music site JamsBio Magazine, we've chosen Radiohead as the first modern band to warrant a worst-to-first countdown of their music, and the inaugural ranking on CultureMap. Check back each week as our obsessive list-maker Jbev counts down all of the band’s album cuts and gives his reasons for the rankings, and also be prepared to tell him why he’s wrong in the comments section. It’s "Everything In Its Right Place: The Ultimate Radiohead Countdown."
Today's countdown looks at the rankings from #60-51. Tune in each Saturday as JBev continues his countdown to number 1!
Song 60: "In Limbo"
Album: "Kid A"
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Thom Yorke once stated that he felt that this song sounded like The Police. Indeed “In Limbo” has some of the knotty textures of that legendary trio’s more complicated compositions from the early '80s. But this track from "Kid A" veers away from Sting and the boys in that a haze hangs over the entire affair, signifying the song’s themes of displacement and bewilderment almost too well.
The hypnotic dance of the interweaving guitars certainly shows the band’s jazzier influences, and the beauty of the music is such that Yorke’s strangled cries are a bit disorienting, like someone interrupting a broadcast. It’s a jarring effect.
In case you’re wondering, “Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea,” which Thom mumbles early on in the song, is a reference to a nightly shipping forecast, a quote that plays right into the nautical theme. When he sings, “You’re living in a fantasy world,” it sounds like an insult, but when he adds right after, “This beautiful world,” he suddenly sounds envious. Eventually he’s wiped out of the picture along with the music by scraping sound effects. It’s all a bit mysterious and difficult, but “In Limbo” certainly holds you in its spell even as it recedes from your grasp.
Song 59: "I Can't"
Album: "Pablo Honey"
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It suffers from inadequate production, a bit muddy and imprecise. The lyrics are clumsy at times. And the instrumental outro, while well-performed, is by-the-numbers and pads the running time while adding nothing of note to the song.
Yet for all its faults, there’s an inherent sweetness to “I Can’t” that stands out amongst the band’s other work. There’s no dark worldview here, no encroaching dangers, just a young man lacking the confidence to say the things he needs to say to the person he cares about the most.
In that context, the lyrical deficiencies make more sense, fitting the character’s own struggles with the right words. The refrain is catchy enough that you don’t mind it being repeated so often. It’s the kind of song that you end up humming to yourself even after you hear it for the very first time, and you really can’t say that about too many other Radiohead songs.
So what if it’s pretty straightforward, save the weird psychedelic guitar that opens the song and sounds a little like “Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan? When you’ve got a tune as innocently endearing as “I Can’t,” you can get away with simplicity.
Song 58: "I Will"
Album: "Hail to the Thief"
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The chief selling point of this track off "Hail To The Thief" is Thom Yorke’s voice, mutitracked and harmonizing with itself to chillingly beautiful effect. Eventually another track of Thom comes in with a countermelody. It’s like Brian Wilson and Freddie Mercury’s love-child.
The genesis for the song is far from light-hearted though, as Yorke was apparently inspired by a Gulf War incident in which children were killed. In typical Radiohead fashion, the band doesn’t spell this out for the audience. They expertly create a mood though, with the minimalist lyrics and delicate melody simply suggesting, never hectoring. It’s almost a subliminal effect, and nobody does that kind of thing better than Radiohead.
“I Will” had actually appeared on record before its placement on "Thief;" the track was reversed and became "Amesiac's" head-tripping “Like Spinning Plates.” This version is less ambitious, of course, just trebly guitar and vocal and only two minutes long. But it’s a snapshot filled with dread, the most mournful lullaby you’ll ever hear.
Song 57: "Fitter Happier"
Album: "OK Computer"
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Let’s get this straight right now: I think "OK Computer" is Radiohead’s finest work and that it’s pretty unassailable as an album, probably up there in my favorite two or three of all time. “Fitter Happier” is an integral part of that album, and I think it’s brilliant.
That it’s ranked so low on this list is simply because it’s only music in the loosest sense of the word. It is a recording, I’ll grant you that, and it speaks to the effectiveness with which this recording accomplishes its objective that I’ve ranked it higher than some pretty damn good songs, actual songs. On its own though, it’s a bit tough to want to sit through it too often. When you get right down to it, it’s pretty terrifying stuff.
Using a computer voice to neutralize all human emotion from entering the picture, Thom Yorke runs through a litany of slogans that are all too often supposed to represent the way to live a good and proper life. But what these mantras lead to is a desensitized middle ground devoid of the highs and lows that comprise a rich existence. Yorke imagines a world with no mistakes, no flaws, and, you guessed it, no alarms and no surprises. The end result would be, as the voice makes clear, robotic.
The idle piano strains in the background, supposedly played by Yorke while drunk, are like a nostalgic melody for a time past when things weren’t so homogenized. Eventually that too is drowned out, until we’re left with that blood-curdling description of what we’ll all become unless we rage against this subtle but inexorable march towards numbness: “A pig in a cage on antibiotics. ”
Again, brilliant. Is it essential to "OK Computer"? Yes. Would I listen to “Fitter Happier” knowing that any one of the next 56 songs on this list was playing on another station? No. Tough choices, my friends. Radiohead presents you with tough choices.
Song 56: "Blow Out"
Album: "Pablo Honey"
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You can see why Radiohead disavows much of "Pablo Honey" these days; although most of it holds up well, it’s also often clumsy and lacks the ambition and grandeur of all that was to come. Yet “Blow Out” is one song the band seems to regard fondly, which is understandable. They would take many of the touches they lent to the song and use them liberally in their subsequent work.
When “Blow Out” starts, it’s got the restrained yet probing feel of an "In Rainbows" track. The big guitars that characterize much of "Pablo Honey" are absent, leaving Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greemwood to do much subtler work, one precisely picking out the understated riff, the other providing textures in the open spaces. Phil Selway’s drumming is high-hat and cymbal heavy, a jazzy feel yet an insistent beat, while Colin Greenwood underpins the whole song with his bass.
Thom Yorke also finds some pieces here that he would use in the future, like the overlaid vocals that make it sound like his id is spilling out while he’s unaware. He also lets out some bellows that are quite similar to the kind that would make it onto "OK Computer." Meanwhile, his lyrical imagery is much finer and more suggestive here than on some of the more blunt offerings on the rest of the album. “All wrapped up in cotton wool,” describing everything the narrator touches, is a perfect rendering of ineffectualness.
Finally, there is the experimentation, with the siren-like guitar blast-off that punctuates the song. The band also does a great job of mixing up the instrumentation throughout, keeping listeners on their toes.
If anything, they throw a little bit too much into the stew here, leaving us all a tad overfilled and exhausted at song’s end. But it makes sense that “Blow Out” was the last song on "Pablo Honey," because it was clear from this song that the band was prepared to leave their initial album behind.
Song 55: "Scatterbrain"
Album: "Hail to the Thief"
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Maybe "Hail To The Thief" is a shade too long, but I liken it to The Beatles "White Album" in that it allows us to hear some songs that otherwise would have been relegated to B-sides or bootleg limbo. I have a feeling that “Scatterbrain” is one of those songs because it feels unfinished, almost like the sketch of an idea not totally fleshed out. And yet it works in its own modest and mysterious way.
If you just concentrated on the gorgeous melody and the gentle guitars, you’d never know that Thom Yorke was describing a hail-pelting, roof-ripping storm. Indeed the dreamy feel of the music lends the impression that the narrator has somehow left his body and is watching himself walk through the carnage while his spirit resides in a much more restful place.
The line “Yesterday’s headlines blown by the wind” was inspired by a scene from a Thomas Pynchon novel, which is fitting because his complicated yet brilliant books have scattered many a brain. “Scatterbrain” has a similarly paradoxical effect: It’s so pretty it hurts.
Song 54: "I Might Be Wrong"
Album: "Amnesiac"
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One of the ways that Radiohead challenges its listeners is by throwing elements together in their songs that seem, on the surface, to be opposing one another. What those elements create is sometimes unsettling, sometimes harsh, but, more often than not, they create something revelatory.
“I Might Be Wrong,” found on "Amnesiac," is a prime example of this tactic. The song starts with Jonny Greenwood’s grimy blues riff, which leads the listener to expect one thing. That’s immediately confounded by the beat, which sounds computer-driven and yet it still kicks in unexpected places. On top of all that comes Thom Yorke’s vocal, a fragile falsetto which seems entombed compared with the crispness of the beat and the rough edges of the guitar.
And just when you think your ears have got it all down, everything drops away in a false finish, revealing a lonely guitar finding some idle beauty in the song’s melody. All of these disparate forces continually confound expectations and keep dullness from ever settling in.
This is once again a case of the words being little more than an afterthought, which is probably for the best, because these lyrics don’t ever connect the dots and aren’t interesting enough as individual phrases to overcome that. No matter. Just think of “I Might Be Wrong” as a compelling instrumental.
Song 53: "15 Step"
Album: "In Rainbows"
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It’s as rhythmically daring as anything Radiohead has ever recorded, proof from the very first song that "In Rainbows" would continue along the band’s path of musical exploration. The chunky computerized beats meld seamlessly with Phil Selway’s battering on “15 Step,” and the odd tempo never gives you a moment to pause and get comfy. That’s a good thing, because at the end of its 4 minutes, the song leaves you breathless and exhilarated.
I do have to admit that the sleepy guitar noodling in the first verses doesn’t quite gibe with the rest for me; it’s a bit of a momentum killer. Better is when the high guitars drop off and allow Colin Greenwood to sprint along with the beat on bass later on in the song.
Yorke’s tune is ingeniously varied here; it’s a martial chant in the opening crunch before morphing into something more seductive as the song advances. The lyrics are opaque yet have some affecting moments, like when the frontman sings, “It comes us to us all/It’s as soft as your pillow.” He leaves us to fill in the blank as to what “it” is, according to our own desires or fears.
The version of “15 Step” on the album will always pale compared to the marching band-assisted version the band trotted out at the 2009 Grammys; who knew that tubas worked so well with themes of alienation and self-deception? (Somewhere Lindsay Buckingham has been vindicated for “Tusk.”) Still, it’s a firecracker of a way to kick off an album, and proof that, unlike the song’s protagonist, this band never ends up where they started.
Song 52: "Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was"
Album: "The Bends"
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The band’s rhythm section worked the bare bones of this song up with Thom Yorke, leaving Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood to figure out where to come in. Their efforts ended up lifting “Bulletproof” into another musical stratosphere, as they recorded effects separately and then had John Leckie meld them onto the main track.
So, as Yorke practically mumbles out the lyrics over the low bass rumble and shaky pulse of a beat, the pyrotechnics lurch about in the background. It effectively conveys what the song is about, that is, Yorke’s sensitivity to everything while living in a touring, rock lifestyle that overloads your senses. His vocal is at the heart of the song, trying in vain to stay grounded, but the guitars keep pulling him skyward.
This is the band at their most fragile and heartfelt, baring their souls for all their fans to see. Their ability to downshift into material this delicate cannot be overstated, as that versatility is rare. Bands usually do slow stuff as a cynical ploy for more sales; Radiohead does it because they’re following their hearts, even if it leads them down vulnerable paths.
Song 51: "You and Whose Army"
Album: "Amnesiac"
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As rallying cries go, “You And Whose Army” isn’t quite the Agincourt speech by Henry V. Oh, if you just read the lyrics, you’d get a brash, if uncouth, defiance from them. But, as sung by Thom Yorke in his most dejected, world-weary voice, they’re hardly going to inspire anybody.
Then again, that’s the point of this track off "Amnesiac." Because of its title, "Hail To The Thief" is usually considered Radiohead’s political album, but it doesn’t contain anything nearly as pointed as this anti-Tony Blair diatribe. Of course, Yorke always keeps things on the coy side during the song, allowing the music and his delivery do more talking than the lyrics could without ever getting specific.
You certainly can hear the withering contempt with which he spits out lines like “You and your cronies” and “You forget so easy.” But the downcast music, which consists of just a lonely, weeping guitar in the early part of the song, makes it clear that there will be no triumph here.
When the rest of the band does join in, led by a pounding piano part, it sounds more like the march of the armies of the dead, which is accentuated by Yorke’s final lines, “We ride tonight/Ghost horses.” He seems to be suggesting that those politicians who betray their constituents, as Yorke deemed Blair to have done, will eventually be held responsible for their actions, if not in this world, then certainly in the one that awaits.
