Yesterday, Radiohead released The King of Limbs
Yesterday, a day earlier than planned, Radiohead released it’s eighth album, The King of Limbs, on digital download. The eight song album only comes in at about thirty seven minutes in length (short by Radiohead standards), but after waiting four years for a new album, the album is, without question, long enough to put Radiohead back on top of the indie music scene. The King of Limbs is already poised to be one of the most successful record releases of 2011.
Which, really, should come as a surprise to no one. Radiohead, led by singer Thom Yorke, has always done things its own way and has, for the most part, been incredibly successful in the process. The band’s last album, In Rainbows, was released as a “pay what you think it’s worth” product, meaning people could download the entire album and pay whatever they wanted for it, up to and including paying nothing. And while Radiohead isn’t releasing The King of Limbs in this format (it costs $9), the band’s audacity remains undiminished.
The album cover to Radiohead's The King of Limbs
On Monday (2/14), Radiohead made the surprising announcement that they would be releasing their first album, The King of Limbs, since 2007. To add to the shock value, the announcement said that the album would be available for digital download in five days (2/19). The Internet instantly exploded with excitement. Perhaps giving in to that excitement, the band threw another surprise into the mix yesterday when they released the album a day early.
So what are people saying about the album? Critics seem to love the shit out of it. Here’s what Jon Pareles of the New York Times had to say….
“By now, Radiohead’s evasion of standard music-business practices is ancient news, but the band may still be thinking about pop’s economy of copying and dissemination. “Morning Mr. Magpie” complains, “You’ve stolen all my magic/Took my melody.” But the new songs demonstrate otherwise. More likely, Radiohead is defying that mindset, creating exactly what it wants on its own timetable, to make another sudden digital splash.
“The King of Limbs” is Radiohead in its familiar richly depressive mode: full of pained longing and fixated on musical nuance, getting lost in sound and then clawing its way out beautifully. As an album, it’s too brief. But these are songs to dive into.”
To add to that, here’s what Maura Johnston of Esquire Magazine has to say…
“So how is this new Radiohead record? Well, for all the surprise surrounding it, The King of Limbs is a somber album, full of moments that are trying to out-low-key one another. Even the more movement-filled songs have a slightly melancholy feel to them, as if they were crafted by a bunch of friends trying to figure out how to spend a day after a picnic they’d planned got rained out. “Little By Little” chugs along, as Thom Yorke trades off melody lines with a barely plucked-out guitar solo; “Lotus Flower” has Yorke playing around with his voice’s highest register over a brooding, barely-there rhythm section. The slower songs shimmer and pulse, with unexpected sounds — a trumpet here, some field recordings there, all creeping into the album’s periphery. (The cut with those more found-somewhere sounds, “Give Up The Ghost,” is a mournful folk song where the backing vocals are tricked-out until they sound like a Theremin.)”
So what do I think of The King of Limbs? To be honest, I’m still wrapping my head around it. This may make me sound pedestrian (or worse, to some), but I have always struggled with “getting” Radiohead music. I like it, mostly, but it takes me a while for me to figure out why I like it. So far, after just two listens, Lotus Flower is my favorite song from the album. I will say, though, that while I’m not yet at the point of understanding this album, I can tell that The King of Limbs is a solid, quality record with a lot of thought put into it. It’s impossible to get something with the uniqueness and richness that this album oozes without putting a good amount of intelligent thought and effort into it.
Radiohead’s The King of Limbs is already being called the most important album of the year in many circles. While I’m not yet sold on that (it is only February, after all), this record will rank as one of the most talked about releases of the year. It is also clear to me that, after all these years, Radiohead hasn’t lost a step. The King of Limbs proves that beyond question.
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