In addition to this sparkling portfolio site, I have spent several years writing a blog that trips its way through my music collection. Sample the wares below with my latest entry! Welcome, won’t you?
That there, that’s not me in the spotlight. “New Adventures in Hi-Fi (25th Anniversary Edition)” by R.E.M., “KID A MNESIA” by Radiohead, and the Return of the Blog
Here’s the hilarious thing: a major reason I started this blog, going disc by disc through my physical music collection, was to stop buying CDs for a while.
My shelves runneth over, jewel cases squeeze together like dead sardines, and as a freelancer, my employment is not always secure. I had already signed up for a Spotify Premium subscription as a way to “save money”– a 10 buck per month bundle of EVERYTHING EVER RECORDED (except for mysteriously grayed-out songs on nearly every pop soundtrack out there) instead of paying the same amount for each plastic pressing of an increasingly-unfashionable format. ‘Listen to what you’ve already got,’ went the mantra, ‘and then you can buy more.’ I was probably in the J’s before I caved.
Blog publishing-wise, far quicker than that. I gave myself a year for this project– that was in the halcyon days of 2017, when we could still feel shock at the News. Aw, how like babes in the woods we were, I just want to pinch our little cheeks! The idea of abstaining from the new and writing about what I owned was inspired by two columns on The A.V. Club: Noel Murray’s “Popless” and Josh Modell’s “Binge And Purge”. As professional pop culture writers, their work ethic was much stronger than mine has been– even setting aside the productivity-vaporizing neutron bomb of the year @0@0 (cursed date censored for the reader’s mental health), I ran out of steam 1,000 days ago.
Those opening paragraphs you just read? Written 10 months ago, rescued from another aborted attempt to reignite the blogging furnace. But it’s funny what will suddenly start the fire (or at least that little pilot light).
I’m midway through This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s “Kid A” and the Beginning of the 21st Century by Steven Hyden, yet another alumnus of A.V. Club (man, I used to enjoy that site, unfortunately it’s gone downhill). Stumbled upon and started just as the band in question released a curious, combined anniversary edition of the very L.P.s Hyden explores and contextualizes in his writing, it feels like kismet. It’s the same kind of accessible, measured, but still ultimately fannish prose that I attempt here (which has likely reached book length on its own.)
Now, I can’t work up as much enthusiasm for Kid A as Hyden does, and I regard Amnesiac with more warmth. The “difficult listens” are actually difficult in the way contemporary critics painted Kid A, yet the more straightforward melodic tracks hit me in the solar plexus so strongly that those bleeps and squealches all feel like necessary connective tissue. (One of my more heretical Radiohead opinions, along with my strong draw to Hail to the Thief).
Here’s the rub with KID A MNESIA: I’ve decided not to buy it in physical format. So I’m breaking my own theme! Put down the pitchforks, please. Not long before the set was announced, I upgraded my copy of Amnesiac to the 2009 special edition, full of b-sides that annoyingly do not make it on to this latest edition. But the previously unreleased tracks that comprise the new disc got me curious. Spotify payed for itself again (now if only it will pay artists as consistently).
They are largely more in line with the stolen, threatened-to-be-leaked, then swiftly officially “leaked” OK Computer tapes. Less polished b-sides than sketches in which one can discern the aural building blocks that became songs that formed unshakeable experiences for a lucky slice of the listening public.
“Like Spinning Plates – ‘Why Us?’ Version” is the lead-off of disc 3. It’s closer to the Bonnaroo 2006 live version I fell in love with, the looping piano figures recognizable as such and Thom’s vocals unaltered by Black Lodge time-reversal shenanigans. But he’s singing the verses in an alternate order, and his titular moan of “Why Us?” floats among the fluttering synth effect heard in the official album version. So it’s close but no cigar to my ideal recording of the song.
“If You Say The Word” is the standout unheard track. A dark, ominous shuffle jam with Johnny Greenwood’s beloved Ondes Martenot lifting Thom’s voice to queasy new heights: the hovering flying saucer that stalks the band finally nabbing them with a 1950’s tractor beam.
“Follow Me Around,” in contrast, never quite takes off. A wisp of a chorus, verses in search of a bridge– maybe try a nice bubblegum pop key change? I’m reaching, here! It feels like a bedroom demo with a stereo mix, and I’m honestly a little shocked they chose to build a music video around it. Appropriately for the song, the Guy Pierce-starring paranoia piece also finds its conceptual rut and stays there for 5+ minutes.
“Pulk/Pull – True Love Waits Version” seems more like a fan’s experimental mashup than a concept the band itself would toy with. But considering the many years in which the band struggled to commit those words & melody to a satisfactory recording (‘95 to 2016; world wars have been fought quicker), they were clearly willing to try any deconstuction necessary to shake something loose.
The alternate versions continue: a THIRD edition of "Morning Bell" (each album had their own pet imagining), this one subtitled "In The Dark." It’s the lullaby for a sleep paralysis episode, proving just how malleable a song can be. “How To Disappear Into Strings” closes the disc out, and it’s undeniably moving, even without Thom’s voice/acoustic strumming. A gentle 20-years-later reminder that Johnny Greenwood is becoming one of our Great film composers.
They are all ultimately curiosities, the result of digging into the Myth and finding the Truth: that a rock band writing in the studio will travel down blind alleys, stumble upon riffs or strangely pleasing sounds and then, one hopes, construct with them a sprawling tower. (A mix of the tedious and the divine that is likewise made plain in the new Get Back Beatles doc.)
This concept is given shape in perhaps the most evocative tie-in to the triple-disc release: Epic Games’ KID A MNESIA Exhibit, a trippy digital art installation in which Stanley Donwood’s iconic work for the albums (from the mixed-media covers to the beguiling little liner note sketches and snatches of lyrics) becomes an explorable 3D space.
It’s a video game where the goal is to be subsumed in the essence of the recordings. My favorite section is the “How To Disappear Completely” room, which offers the experience of floating through a snow globe while you seek out Yorke’s voice, represented as a discreet auditory object in space that you move your first-person avatar through the storm to face. Just like the albums themselves, it’s built for headphones, a dark room, and optionally, your favorite chemical substance.
It’s a similar surround-sound situation that inspired me to pick up the new anniversary edition of New Adventures in Hi Fi by R.E.M. (My favorite band, with Radiohead at #2 and The Beatles squeaking in at #3, so it’s been a very good fall for me). I’ve written at length about this soundtrack to my college years, so no need to repeat myself.
Though the second disk has its share of bonus tracks as well (mostly alternate live versions and one or two b-sides), the included Blu-ray disc was the selling point. The idea of mixing a quarter-century-old rock record into Dolby 5.1 can be called revisionist, but the prospect of having these tracks literally fill a room, of being able to sit inside the recordings… well it almost takes the sting out of never being able to witness these guys live.
Let that siren loop from “Leave” scar your eardrums and scare your cats. Patti Smith’s guest vocal on “E-Bow The Letter” will murmur over your shoulder as you stare out your living room window at the gray outdoors.
And join me for more entries in the future. The collection’s gotten bigger. projectalbum.tumblr.com/
