Overlooked Records of 2011: The King of Limbs

Jesse Paller

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

Unfortunately, one of the best albums of the year (in my opinion) has been subject to some of the worst qualities of the music-listening world: shallowness, self-righteousness, and stubbornness. Listeners who were waiting for a logical follow-up to 2007‰’s brilliant In Rainbows instead got a follow-up that was something more experimental, a little harder to digest.

And so, rather than embrace the idea of a new sound, or use common sense to assume that a band like Radiohead, with a track record of almost two decades of excellent, critically acclaimed and publicly adored music, would maybe know what they were doing when it came to their own music, people jumped to the defensive and panned the album. Is it because it‰’s too abstract? Is it because it uses chords and rhythms they‰’ve never heard? Is it too different from what they expected? Are they upset because it isn‰’t being spoon-fed to them? What were Radiohead thinking, making music that wasn‰’t easy?

I have heard The King of Limbs called “bad‰” a few times recently, and tried to find a moment on The King of Limbs that sounds “bad‰” to me. Is the opener “Bloom‰” bad, with its crescendo of horns and strings as Thom Yorke‰’s voice opens up into a vast ocean of sound? Is the ethereal “Give Up the Ghost‰” unsatisfying? Does the punishing and cutting “Little By Little‰” lack something? I can‰’t hear it. Is the loneliness and beauty of “Lotus Flower,‰” the sound of a man searching for meaning within his own empty soul, a misstep? And is “Codex‰” too quiet, so poignant and so perfect on its own, that it forces you to look at your own imperfections and make real decisions about your life? Is that even a bad thing? I don‰’t think it is. The King of Limbs is one of the most radically gorgeous masterpieces I have ever heard. The process of listening to it has made me a better person, music listener, and musician. I pity anybody who can‰’t take the time to allow it to change them as well.

Music will always have its naysayers; people hated Beethoven in his time for his radical third period; people rioted at Stravinsky‰’s Rite of Spring; parents forbid their children from going to Beatles concerts in the ‰60s and panicked when “The Chronic‰” cruised its way onto the radio in the early ‰90s. Sometimes it‰’s hard for music consumers to handle raw talent when it challenges rather than conforms to expectations. But this talent seems to translate into something more eternal than the people who assume the right to tell musicians how their music ought to be done. While they die, and disintegrate beneath the earth, the music lives on, as it has for Beethoven and Stravinsky and John and Paul and countless other targets of musical small-mindedness. It becomes an inspiration to future generations, and makes its indelible mark on the face of history, while the voices disparaging its creativity and free expression disappear, thankfully, from the musical subconscious.

I daresay that had the people who insult The King of Limbs been this age when Kid A came out, they would have said the same things. “Where‰’s my OK Computer Part II?‰” “This isn‰’t music!‰” “Why is this band progressing, they were so at my level before!‰Û

Maybe they still are. Maybe you just need to listen harder.