Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Radiohead
In 1993, guitar-based music (the term ‘rock and roll’ has become an almost laughable anachronism in the nineties) was going through a bleak stage. The ‘Overproduced-Chanteuse’ syndrome was at its peak, in the personages of Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and the like, and the strength of this trend was so overwhelming that there just wasn’t room for much else. When “Creep” first appeared on the radar, there was little indication that the band performing the song would, by decade’s end, become one of the most important and influential bands of the era. At the time, there was no reason for me to think that Radiohead would amount to anything more than one-hit wonders. Upon casual listen, “Creep” only typified the post-grunge landscape, with lyrics of self-loathing and despair that verged on stereotype. It was musically interesting, but its theme was too depressing to be a rallying cry for anything except nihilism, and it got lost in a sea of similar fare from bands like Soundgarden and Live. As if to highlight the genericism of the title, The Stone Temple Pilots also had a (different) hit song called “Creep” around the same time as Radiohead. Eventually, though, it became obvious that Radiohead’s “Creep” had an insidious quality to it. It burrowed its way into my brain and lay dormant there (along with just about everything else that enters my brain nowadays) until the band’s follow-up album, The Bends, made me realize just how good this band really was. In light of The Bends, it became obvious that I had underestimated Radiohead. Without being consciously aware of it, I was developing a newfound appreciation for “Creep” at about the same time that the band started to get well sick of it.
A classic problem that haunts every artist with one big hit song is the fear that you might forever be identified with that one piece of music, at the expense of everything else that you have done (Jimmy Buffett = “Margaritaville”, Soft Cell = “Tainted Love”, etc.). Just as problematic is how to avoid getting bored performing the same song night after night. Radiohead developed this aversion to their hit pretty quickly, especially since their record company kept re-releasing “Creep” and insisting that they continually tour to support it. In the band’s documentary film, Meeting People Is Easy, Thom Yorke stands mute onstage with his arms folded during the band’s performance of “Creep”, letting the audience sing the song back at him. Strangely, this obtuse behavior only exaggerated the sense of alienation that the song conveys, while the band’s subsequent releases pushed the envelope even further.
Radiohead is not an easy band to get a handle on. They make music that is deliberately oblique, and they are lauded for it. Thom Yorke is an interesting communicator, perhaps because of the paradox of creating art about the breakdown of communication, or the inability to comprehend the meaning of what is being communicated, especially in this age of stress-inducing information overload. People appreciate music for a lot of different reasons, but technology and contemporary society have conspired to make many of us expect more than just a good song. We expect visuals, drama, a unique world-view. The post Gen-X landscape has exaggerated this tendency. The precedent of previous musical statements has left subsequent generations with the notion that there isn’t much else left to say. Artistically speaking, it’s as if we’ve reached the proverbial Pacific Ocean; there’s nowhere left to go. At the same time, technological advances of the past decade have drastically altered our perception of things we thought we already knew. So much information rolls past us on a daily basis that we can’t possibly comprehend even a sliver of it. We feel compelled to remain on top of things, but there is a nagging sense of haunting insecurity that stems from our inability to comprehend our environment. Perhaps as a societal means of cloaking ourselves from this confusion, we crave things that are predictable and simple. The best-selling recording artists stick to formulaic love songs, but Radiohead have immersed themselves in dysfunction. This especially applies to subsequent albums, such as OK Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac. While the band somehow manages the unlikely scenario of increasing their commercial appeal with ever more confounding music, “Creep” tenaciously hangs on as the band’s most instantly recognizable piece of work. Despite their best efforts to quash it, “Creep” is now a definitive example of the thinking man’s alternative to classic nineties pop.
 
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