Radiohead’s sixth and most recent album (dating from 2003, which shows how much time ha passed since anything new) returns to guitar based roots after the electronic experimentation of Kid A and Amnesiac, but doesn’t go back far enough to recall The Bends. While it combines aspects across their previous work, in my opinion, those choices aren’t necessarily the best, and as such Hail To The Thief is disappointingly hit and miss.

Overall, the songs are slightly over-long without enough contrast between them or their sections. Even after repeated listening, I find many indistinguishable. I recall a musical moment and can’t place if it came from Kid A, Amnesiac, or Hail To The Thief.

Still, when Radiohead hits, they hit large, and my favorite tracks bear repeated listening, namely 2+2=5, Myxomatosis, and Scatterbrained.

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Paul McCartney has a new album out soon, Memory Almost Full. With a title like that, I fear that McCartney has gotten lazy again, and this track confirms it. He can write songs like this in his sleep.

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Michael Penn is among my favorite musicians since his debut single No Myth. I’ve bought all his albums since, which isn’t a difficult task, as there are frustratingly few. However, I always felt rewarded despite long waits between, as each was chock full of the singer-songwriter-power-pop goodness I could savor like a thick block of chocolate.

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When I bought Whatever I didn’t expect much, but Aimee Mann was actually on the cusp of a brilliant reinvention from the ashes of Til Tuesday (stereotypical hit wonders) to a “serious singer-songwriter” (a stereotypical cliche). Luckily, Mann had the good fortune to team up with Jon Brion, an unusual producer also on an upswing. A former member of the cult band The Grays, Brion would go on to produce Fiona Apple and the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack.

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After the Elvis Costello concert I dug a bit more into what albums Elvis had out, and realized that the entire Elvis Costello catalog has been released digitally on iTunes. Pretty cool.

There’s also some humongous album collection available as an Amazon exclusive, which includes 12 of his CDs. The selling point is the tremendous amount of music has been remastered.

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Last week my wife mentioned Elvis Costello was coming to town. It’s been a while since we went to a proper rock concert (The last being was Rita Moreno at the Plush Room - man, we’re old), so tickets were purchased and plans to postpone bedtime were made. As a long time fan, I own the vast majority of Costello’s major albums, with the exception of Kojak Variety, the more recent The River In Reverse, and various superfluous compilation albums. But this would be the first time I’d seen him perform live.

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The Bends is Radiohead’s second album, and sounds it - an evolutionary step squarely between the melodic rock of Pablo Honey and the moody, otherworldly masterpiece OK Computer. There’s conflict between standard rock and more experimental, nearly atonal sonic textures. Some songs are frustratingly safe, others gloriously so, and a few flirt with the cutting edge. In retrospect, Radiohead was on the edge of a creative leap, peeking into a canyon but not quite over the rift.

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This is pretty cool news, that the more I read about, seems to be win-win for everyone: EMI, Apple, and the consumer. To quote Steve Jobs (from SFGate):

“I think customers are going to love this,” Jobs said. “This is an opportunity for everybody to win. Customers win because they get what they want. The music companies make little bit more money by offering a little bit more value. Everybody wins here.”

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Earlier, I ran a poll asking which musical artist to profile in a song by song, album ranking manner - the winner was Radiohead. I’m starting with OK Computer and The Bends as I find them easier to review, for reasons that will become clear in subsequent posts.

OK Computer was Radiohead’s third album - and the distance from Pablo Honey - their first - is vast. Many bands never evolve to the heights climbed here, either self-destructing or remaining mired in mediocrity over many more albums.

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One cool thing about blogging is finding neat stuff I wouldn’t have on my own. I had just read about electronica musician The Polish Ambassador on Tunequest, when the Ambassador himself contacted me, wondering I’d like to review his new CD, Diplomatic Immunity. Naturally, I said yes.

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