Radiohead Week - 1

Yesterday I asked Holly whether she would be purchasing the download for The King of Limbs, to which she replied: “Well, I’d kind of like to try before I buy”. Okay. So, as though seven previous studio albums, one live album, and about 300 B-sides and rarities of the highest order were not enough to prove Radiohead worthy of her investment, we had an argument. The rather delicate matter of Fake Plastic Trees arose: your humble and dignified blost arguing for its glory, his missus arguing against. I claimed that FPT (as it’s known in the selecter circles) is one of the seminal tracks not only of the Radiohead canon, but also of music in the modern age. Holly claimed that it was, and still is simply insufferable, whilst simultaneously intensifying the stereotype that Radiohead are a moody, depressing, slash-your-wrists-type band. Well, that mantle should, as we all know, go to No Surprises, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve said it before, and I’ll go on doing so; until you’ve heard the lines, “if I could be who you wanted…”, bellowed by 60,000 people in a field, you should be ashamed to die. Admittedly, however, I did have to concede that, yes, there are a handful of Radiohead tracks that I can’t quite stick either. Just is one such example. I hate it, and I think it’s terrible. And, although this is almost blasphemous, up until I heard this song live in 2006, I had a real problem with Paranoid Android. No one, not even the most elitist Radiohead fan is going to thump you if you parade your dislike for Million Dollar Question or How Do You?, but those other two, I fear, might land me a pummeling. As I’ve come to learn over the years, a fan’s tastes are liable to change. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, Jim Armshaw maintained for years that Like Spinning Plates was superior to Life in a Glasshouse, which is false. I suspect he harbored a secret kinship with LSP because he saw it performed live in Maida Vale studios, and we did not (the bastard). Over time, perspective always reins. In the end, Holly and I’s argument became so incensed that she asked me to choose between the following hypothetical scenarios: having a once in a lifetime wedding, or seeing Radiohead’s final performance. It’s totally unanswerable, and let’s hope that situation never arises…