The track’s heavy piano chords aren’t far from “ Karma Police,” but when it rocks, it hits as hard as “ Electioneering” and “ Paranoid Android.” Again, pretty strings sweetly complement the song’s softer, more sublime moments-but they drop into lower, fuller registers at the beginning of the chorus, a cinematic technique we saw play out more fully on last year’s A Moon Shaped Pool.
Its uneasy movements from major to minor key anticipate the kind of dark chord progressions they would latter explore on Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief (think “ Morning Bell” or “ Scatterbrain” in particular). Of the three tracks, this one’s by far the best. The second track, “ Man of War,” was released June 22nd, also with a music video . Lyrically, Yorke paints a cynical picture of unhealthy domestic attachment and 21st-century suburban ennui most resembling the classic OK Computer track “ No Surprises.” We’re left with a song that sits somewhere between Bends-era and OK Computer-era Radiohead, acting as a kind of explanatory link between the two sounds. However, there are certain details in the production-specifically the reverb on Thom Yorke’s vocals-that give it a certain spaciousness more reminiscent of the latter album than the former.
A synthesized string part adds a delicate richness to the track as it progresses, but musically speaking, the song doesn’t develop that much. “I Promise,” which was released with an accompanying music video on June 2nd as OKNOTOK’s first single, is a steadily marching ballad that sounds more like “ High and Dry” (from Radiohead’s second album, The Bends) than anything from OK Computer. Well, to begin to answer these questions, one must listen first to the three unreleased tracks.
But the album and its b-sides were already compiled in a Collector’s Edition re-release in 2009, so we’re driven to wonder: why do we need another reissue? Does OKNOTOK matter in 2017, or does it just cash-in on the album’s mythic status? Is this something just for collectors, or can the lay Radiohead fan enjoy it?
Since 1997, OK Computer has received unanimous critical praise and attained platinum certification in eight different countries, so a 20th-anniversary edition seems warranted. On June 23rd, to mark the 20th anniversary of OK Computer’s original release, Radiohead reissued the album as OKNOTOK, a two-disc set including the remastered original album, eight b-sides, and three previously unreleased tracks.
0 kommentar(er)
