Hail to the Thief Reviews
Feb 14th, 2008 by admin
How did the famous music magazines face the 6th album of Radiohead? What did NME, PitchFork etc wrote about Hail to the Thief?
PitchFork wrote: “Because today, Radiohead are U2, Pink Floyd, and Queen– and they could have been bigger than The Beatles if the success of “Creep” hadn’t agitated an Oxford-bred guilt complex.” ” For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow, pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously. Experimentation fueled the creativity that gave us Kid A and Amnesiac, but that’s old hat to Radiohead, who are trying– and largely succeeding– in their efforts to shape pop music into as boundless and possible a medium as it should be.“
BBC’s Dan Tallis wrote: “Hail To The Thief is without question more accessible than its two predecessors. But to say it’s a step backwards or disappointing in any way is foolish.” and added “This album sees a return to simple song construction. Guitar, drums and keyboards form the backbone of these 14 indie pop songs“. He concluded “How do Radiohead maintain their position as the world’s most successful, non-mainstream band? Is it because Thom Yorke rarely smiles? And doesn’t have a celebrity girlfriend? I suspect it’s because they make some of the most amazing, anthemic, inspiring music around today“.
MTV writes “…but the vibe and celebrity culture of the West Coast certainly had an effect on them. The music on Hail to the Thief is far less sterile and claustrophobic than the band’s last two discs. Some songs are colored with electronic samples, but most abound with evocative guitar lines and real drums, and tracks like “There There” and “Go to Sleep” mark a return to the gloomy melodic pop dynamics of OK Computer.”
NME’s James Oldham assumes: “Hail To The Thief, then, is a good rather than great record. It sounds exactly how you expect it to sound after ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac’ - and that’s the problem. Radiohead are a band still coming to terms with the puzzle of what to do after you’ve made an album universally hailed as one of the greatest ever. They’re finding it’s a trick that’s hard to produce twice“.
But what did Thom Yorke himself say about Hail to the Thief? “It was like a beach vacation. We did everything we weren’t supposed to do, and we felt kind of sick afterwards. It was like eating too much chocolate or something. It didn’t feel like the world was going to end, so we wanted to make the sort of sounds that get you up in the morning and [that] sort of have a positive energy to them. It was the most fun we’ve ever had in the studio“.
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