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Underground > Radio & Music >

Radiohead | Hail To The Thief

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Matthew Fluxington

13:09 / 25.03.03

Radiohead have finally announced the details about their sixth album, Hail To The Thief. The tracklist is as follows:

01 2 + 2 = 5
02 Sit Down. Stand Up
03 Sail To The Moon
04 Backdrifts
05 Go To Sleep
06 Where I End And You Begin
07 We Suck Young Blood
08 The Gloaming
09 There There
10 I Will
11 A Punch-Up at a Wedding
12 Myxamatosis
13 Scatterbrain
14 A Wolf At The Door

If you're familiar with the majority of thoses songs as I am, you might agree that it's a very peculiar set of songs, with a potentially awkward flow. It's too early to tell without hearing the studio recordings, of course.

How about that title, though? "Hail To The Thief" - ugh. Bad pun, kinda lame, won't age well.

So here it goes - the big 2003 Radiohead thread. All Radiohead info should be here.

17:50 / 25.03.03

Radiohead 6??

This is like some... wonderful dream.

19:26 / 25.03.03

MP3s of the complete 2002 Salamanca concert (which features many of the new songs) can be found here.

00:24 / 26.03.03

For those of us without the connections to get this stuff downloaded, why's it a peculiar set? And how does it compare to Kid A and Amnesiac?

Matthew Fluxington

06:44 / 26.03.03

The new songs have an odd balance - they have more traditional rock arrangements (think OK Computer or the Bends) but most of them sound even darker and bleaker than the darkest, bleakest music on Amnesiac. From the songs that I know, it's a logical progression from Amnesiac, particularly what they were doing on songs like "Pyramid Song", "You And Whose Army?", "Knives Out", and "Life In A Glass House". So, on one hand, it's more accessable to those who may have been put off by the more electronic elements of the previous two records, but it's a very far cry from the pop hooks of their earlier work.

I used the word peculiar to describe the tracklisting mostly because the pacing of the album seems weird to me, it looks like it's a fit of stops and starts. There's a few songs that I don't particularly like, based on live recordings that I've heard - "I Will" is pretty but boring; every version I've heard of "Go To Sleep" has been a rambling mess; and the Pablo Honey-esque "2+2=5" has yet to make any impression on me.

However, some of these songs are pretty fucking amazing. "Sail To The Moon" and "Scatterbrain" are both gorgeous romantic ballads; "Myxamatosis" is one of the heaviest and creepiest rock songs they've ever penned; "We Suck Young Blood" and "A Wolf At The Door" both have a sinister horror-film vibe; and "There, There", "Where I End And You Begin", and "A Punch Up At A Wedding" are the type of dark pop songs that Radiohead does best.

16:11 / 26.03.03

I'm not sure about that name, Hail to the theif, but I'm certainly very excited about the prospect of a new Radiohead album.

20:29 / 26.03.03

roundabout insider connection - my osteopath's son is in radiohead (ed o'brien) and one appointment, after he'd cracked my bones, knowing I was a radiohead fan, he gave me a sneak peak of one of the tracks ed had sent him - can't tell you which one it was, it was untitled at the time, had a lot of kid A flavour about it, am looking forward to hearing the full album when it's released...

15:06 / 28.03.03

Smitty: hooray! finally, a Barbeloid without a weird name.

19:37 / 30.03.03

The album has now, officially, leaked to the net. I don't have a handy download link, but anyone have it and want to share first impressions? 2 + 2 = 5 is an excellent album opener.

Matthew Fluxington

20:18 / 30.03.03

Hey! Thanks for the head's up. I'm surprised that it leaked so incredibly early. I wasn't expecting it to pop up online for another month or so.

Matthew Fluxington

20:30 / 30.03.03

Gut instinct response upon hearing "Backdrifts" for the first time:

This could be the best Radiohead song ever.

Boy in a Suitcase

21:29 / 30.03.03

Quick: who knows where to download the album from?

Matthew Fluxington

12:42 / 31.03.03

Soulseek is where I found it. Soulseek is the best file sharing network. It should be everywhere by now, though.

An mp3 of "Backdrifts" is on my blog.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

12:48 / 31.03.03

I, er, came across it last night over the course of several furtive, Mac-salvationing hours. One fucking hell of a birthday present.

Ditto on 2+2=5 being a tremendous opening. But the rest of the album is spectacular as well. When I first heard the live tracks I was geared up to be dissappointed severely. Nothing hit me the way the first live versions of, say, How To Disappear did. But as me and my roommate listened to preview after preview of each track as I got them we were pretty taken aback at how much the songs had evolved. Much of Kid A and Amnesiac sounded like, you know, a regular Radiohead song coated in sonic weirdness, which, you know, was great, but I feel like none of these songs could have existed in any other fashion than they do on this CD. If that makes any sense. I guess, what I mean, is that there doesn't seem to be the potential for an acoustic version of, say, The Gloaming, the way that Like Spinning Plates ended up.

And, holy crap, "Go To Sleep" is Led Zeppelin IV if Prefuse 73 produced it, isn't it?

I'm loving this album. After staying up all night downloading it, I still had the energy to go completely spastic to the end of 2+2 about twelve times.

"A Wolf At The Door" is pretty fuckin' heartbreaking and beautiful. Just hearing Thom become a sort of anti-Bono. "There's all this fucking crazy shit outside and all I can do is sing."

Amen.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:48 / 31.03.03

Spent many, many hours downloading the concert and have listened all the way through once. The new songs strike me as 'interesting' but will take several listens for me to make up my mind.

18:06 / 31.03.03

Stayed up most of last night downloading it.

Absolutely brilliant.

There's really no other way to say it. I still wonder what a studio version of "Up on the Ladder" might sound like but please excuse me for dwelling on it.

Glad the whole thing flows so well because I was worried it would be too jumpy, as someone said already, when I read the tracklist. But I think the band knew what the songs needed when the went in to the studio. For me that's one of the things which sets Radiohead apart, I think that no matter what they're doing with each song they always have the final product in mind.

Favorite tracks so far are 2+2=5 and probably Where i End and You Begin and Go to Sleep, brilliant.

I'm not sure about There There right now, but I think that's because I've been listening to the Bridge School Benefit show recently, the version Thom Yorke played there is the best I've heard.

And Backdrifts is a wonderful song. I love it already and I know it's going to grow on me even more.

Sorry about all this rambling.

I get so excited where Radiohead are concerned...

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

19:36 / 31.03.03

So, there seems to be some strong evidence that this version floating around is not the final release version. There is much grousing and whining, to which I say, HOW FUCKING COOL IS THAT? That's like seeing the three and a half hour cut of Magnolia. I mean, like you weren't going to buy the album anyways. I mean, "come on." Either way. This is a great document to the skill of this band, regardless of whether or not this is the final version of the album. Fantastic songs and the fact that we're getting a literal sneak peek, that these aren't even the final mastered versions, is even cooler.

19:55 / 31.03.03

wheres the info coming from benjamin? loving '2+2=5' so far

20:04 / 31.03.03

I can't think of any better way to dampen my enthusiasm for this record than comparing it to an extended cut of Magnolia. I might have to sell all my other Radiohead discs just to be safe.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

20:21 / 31.03.03

There's a huge thread about it at www.ateaseweb.com and their message board. There's some posts from a CMJ guy who says they got the press release copy and it's different and blah blah blah.

Okay, Vid. How about just comparing it to an extended rough cut of 'Vid's Favorite Movie Ever'. Same difference.

20:26 / 31.03.03

No, you go ahead and keep your biblical, touchy-feely epic in mind, and I'll just think of puppies.

The notion that this might be a bit of a rough cut is certainly weakening my resolve not to download this prior to release, though.

Matthew Fluxington

21:01 / 31.03.03

If this isn't the final version of the record, I sincerely doubt that the final released version will be substantially different. There may be some cosmetic changes, but probably nothing major.

However, if I were Radiohead, I would seriously consider dropping a few of the songs and changing the running order of the album.

"Sail To The Moon" really ought to be the final song. There's too many songs on the record which follow the "soft but tense at first leading up to frenzied vamping at the end" formula, and to have the first two songs on the record follow that arc is just too much. When they do it on four of the songs on the record, it wrecks the desired effect for each individual song.

"I Will" is a pleasant song, but it's just filler. "Go To Sleep" is not a fully realized song, and I'm not talking about the way it was recorded - it just sounds half baked.

If they cut the record down to these ten songs, it could be a better album:

1. 2+2=5
2. There There
3. A Punch Up A Wedding
4. Myxomatosis
5. Scatterbrain
6. A Wolf At The Door
7. Where I End And You Begin
8. We Suck Young Blood
9. Backdrifts
10. Sail To The Moon

The record that I have right now is quite good, but is a cluttered and unfocused album.

I think the Magnolia comparison is a good one, but not in the positive way I think Benjamin is thinking of. I think Magnolia is a movie that was coasting on what Paul Thomas Anderson had achieved with Boogie Nights, and could have been a better film were it edited down and made less repetitive. Taken as individual songs, nothing on Hail To The Chief is bad, but together they paint an unflattering portrait of a band that is resorting to formula and doesn't seem to know what it wants to be anymore.

If this turned out to be Radiohead's final album, or their second-to-last record, it wouldn't surprise me at all. This is like their Sandinista.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

23:16 / 31.03.03

I have to put Wolf At The Door as a much more effective closer, considering the content of the final song. All that's left against, you know, scary painful shit, is singing, music. Thematically (and musically to my ears) it's the perfect finish.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

23:21 / 31.03.03

Oh, and on The Gloaming, I'm pretty sure he's saying "It should be raining." Fits with the whole rain theme. Wow. Rain. Raindrops. Hail. "Weather" or not you like the album you have to admit that's pretty "cool".

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HA!

oh jesus.

00:57 / 01.04.03

damn discovered in the space of 2 minutes that radiohead where playing in belfast and that all the tickets were sold out, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

at least benjamin's post made me laugh

Matthew Fluxington

01:03 / 01.04.03

Sean, those initial club dates in the UK are just for promotional purposes, they'll be playing more UK tour dates later in the year.

01:25 / 01.04.03

hope so flux, seeing them live two years ago was amazing, especially since it was my first music concert.

09:12 / 01.04.03

I'll definitely buy it when it's release, they always have such lovely packaging, ha ha....

Apparenty the cover art involves "Oil and TV"

And I've noticed the rain theme as well. As soon as I heard the first bootleg of "Sit Down, Stand Up" I thought of "Paranoid Android" and I think he does say "It should be raining" in "The Gloaming".

Agree that "Wolf at the Door", don't think "Sail to the Moon" should be there at all, I find it quite boring. I think there are a lot of other bands who could have written this song.

Counting the days until the Edinburgh date...

Matthew Fluxington

11:04 / 01.04.03

I'm curious about what other bands might have written "Sail To The Moon". It's so incredibly Yorke - he has a very distinctive style with the piano and the droning of his voice, and I don't know of anyone else who makes music that sounds quite like that. And don't even try to say Coldplay. That sounds nothing like Coldplay.

09:44 / 02.04.03

I like Go to Sleep. It sounds like an escapee from Jar of Flies.

12:31 / 02.04.03

Every version of "Go To Sleep" I get fades into silence after a few seconds. The sound just returns seconds before the end of the track. It's the 5th time I download it and I always get a screwed up version. What gives? Gaah!

Matthew Fluxington

12:38 / 02.04.03

What are you downloading it from? Everyone seems to have the right versions on Soulseek. You want to make sure that it is 3:31.

Bio, you've nailed "Go To Sleep" - it does sound like Radiohead doing an AIC song, circa Jar Of Flies.

Matthew Fluxington

12:44 / 02.04.03

Nigel Godrich says that the songs in circulation are definitely not the finished versions:

Nigel: Not final mix
Nigel Godrich showed up on the official Radiohead messageboard ealier ago asking where he could download some of the leaked tracks. Less than an hour later, he came back and had this to say:

Its the rough mixes ....
some tracks not even finished.
aint that a bitch?
Not really what I'd want the world to hear, frankly.
boo.

14:54 / 02.04.03

This should put smiles on.

Proceedhere boys and toys.

10:49 / 03.04.03

hey casemaker, that was sweet! thanks!

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