Between September 30, 2007 and October 10, 2007, I spent 240 hours quaking in anticipation for the new Radiohead album In Rainbows to reach my inbox. As I’ve been an h-core Radiohead fan since my sister first played me The Bends, I had come to associate their album releases as significant events in my life. Leaving aside the revolutionary means of distribution, what was most fascinating for me about In Rainbows is that releasing the album this way ensured what may be the first collective musical experience in my lifetime. On October 10, 2007, people from all walks of life turned to their computers to have their minds collectively blown.
Aside from the cryptic messages left on their blog, Dead Air Space, the last we heard from Radiohead as a band was just over four years ago with the release of Hail to the Thief, a decent album, which nonetheless sounded a little bit tired. In the period between albums, Radiohead refrained from signing with a record label, took time off and took to the road, previewing all ten tracks that would eventually end up on In Rainbows. The album contains all the elements of Radiohead we’ve come to know and love over the more experimental stages of their career: Thom Yorke’s haunting crooning, reverberating electronic blips and hums, white noise distortion…and wait a minute… was that a guitar? And a drum? And an ORCHESTRA!?! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! For the first time in years, my favorite band sounds like a band.
The album opens with the lyrics, “How come I end up where I started? How come I end up where I belong?” The line seems to subconsciously refer at once to Radiohead’s return to their sonic roots and the evolution their music has made over the last decade. In Rainbows rocks and rolls in exhilarating and unexpected ways, the perfect amalgamation of Radiohead’s lost days of straightforward rock with their less-accessible forays into the music weaned from technology.
The album is replete with moments that invert expectations, as the songs build and deconstruct themselves from inside out. The opening electronic scratch and drum sequence in “15 Step” teases us into thinking Yorke and company are going the way of Kid A and Amnesiac, but soon the scratch dissipates, giving way to Jonny Greenwood’s soulful guitar line. “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” crescendos monumentally into a modern symphony as the arpeggios weave in and out of the intricate drumming and transcendent harmonies.” It sounds like it could belong on Ok Computer. Listen to “Let Down” and then “Weird Fishes” back to back to understand the progress they’ve made as a band. In spite of the dissenters, Radiohead had to make Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief in order to be able to write the songs on In Rainbows.
Perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment of the album is the return to pure, unadulterated melody. Rarely is Yorke’s voice filtered beyond recognition. A personal favorite, “All I Need” centers itself on the sincere refrain of what may be Yorke’s most uncomplicated lyrics to date, “You’re all I need / You’re all I need.” The oldest track on the record, appearing sometime in the 1990s, “Nude,” begins as a Bjork-circa-Medulla mermaid song, but the doubled voices soon drop away, leaving Yorke doing his doleful, inspired version of r&b, singing about woes of alienation with the lines, “And now that you’ve found it – it’s gone / and now that you’ve felt it – you don’t.” “Reckoner,” indulges Radiohead’s ability to create cinematic atmospheric pieces à la “How to Disappear Completely,” and “Exit Music (for a Film),” yet doesn’t take itself as seriously, reveling instead in its own inner harmonies. This album is definitely the sexiest Thom Yorke and crew have ever sounded.
In Rainbows is also the best of all of Radiohead’s beautifully messed up worlds. One of the reasons many listeners and fans may have been turned off in recent years is that all of the blipping, buzzing, and whirring can come off as noise pollution. Instead, here Radiohead extracts moments of their electronic experimentation to use as accents instead of overwhelming the songs. Songs like “Bodysnatchers” and “House of Cards” recall the more sonically distant moments of Amnesiac, but the band remains grounded.
Finally, the album closer, “Videotape,” finds Yorke singing, “This is my way of saying goodbye / Because I can’t do it face to face.” As I reluctantly retreat into the post-album silence, I realize that Radiohead has come full circle, not back to where they started, but to a new and exciting vantage point over the full range of their talent and experimentation. The repetitive piano and continuously collapsing drumbeat of “Videotape” provide an appropriate and steady march away from the tremendously moving masterpiece that is In Rainbows.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Scenic Views Column: Dance 9/28/07
Published: Friday, September 28, 2007
Dance Dance Yalies! A not-so-subtle call for revolution
Celeste Ballard
Let me tell you about my fantasy: I’m walking down the streets of Soho, kick-ball-changing, shuffle-ball-stepping to the totally chasé-able chorus of ABBA’s “Voulez Vous” I have bumping from my iPod headphones. Just as I bend down to pick up a fully-loaded iTunes gift certificate, Leigh Lezark from the MisShapes, Zooey Deschanel and Chloe Sevigny (three ladies I think look cool all the time) stop me on the street and invite me to what they refer to as THE dance party.
“But she can’t go wearing that!” shrieks Zooey, whipping out a grab bag filled to the brim with hot numbers from Marc Jacobs, 3.1lim and other lines that H&M likes to knock off. “Wait! You forgot the finishing touch!” Chloe says, whimsically pulling a pair of ruby-encrusted Nike Terminators off the backs of two equally ruby encrusted land dolphins who have just swam through the air to the corner of Prince and Elizabeth. I slip them on my feet, gasping, “They’re just my size!” Just as Zooey starts to respond, “Of course they are! This is your fantasy and you’re writing this right—” Leigh interrupts her, shouting, “Quick! To the teleporter!” We step into the frozen goods aisle of the nearest bodega, pull open the door with the Lean Cuisines inside, and everything goes black.
When I open my eyes, I’m inside a set of gates that read Emerald Cit-tay in neon, standing in the middle of a room complete with luminescent green ceilings, walls and floors like some Ian Schrager hotel gone wild. Suddenly, a voice booms over the microphone, “Are you ready to dance?” An invisible DJ scratches his record not once, not twice, but three times, letting the opening moments of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson do the talking.
As the song begins to play, the craziest corps-de-ballet I’ve ever seen enters, dancing with wild abandon and wearing crazy carnivale masks. It’s the most reckless dancing of my life, so naturally I don’t notice when the clock strikes five in the morning. The scene disintegrates, and I wake up on my Tempur-Pedic, the beats of Timbaland, old school Puff Daddy and the Family, and various Euro fare refraining in my ears. But wait! I’m clutching a pair of red sparkley shoes! It wasn’t a dream after all!
At one point in the movie “Dazed and Confused,” the nerd played by Anthony Rapp asks the nerd played by Adam Golberg, “So you’re not gonna go to law school? What do you want to do then?” and in a moment of Linklaterian perfection, Golberg responds desperately and earnestly, “I wanna dance!”
I kept coming back to this line this summer, mostly because I watched every episode of “So You Think You Can Dance?” multiple times, but also because, well, when it comes down to it, the one thing I almost always want to do is dance. It doesn’t matter where I am or what time of day it is. During a particularly jubilatory Shaw’s run the other day, I found myself in the vitamins aisle dancing in front of the Gingko Biloba to the warbled R&B jams of Breezy-Nostalgia FM.
I’m not referring to easy dances like the Bunny Hop or The Hokey Pokey. Nor do I mean choreographed routines, like those you might find at a Danceworks show, packed with popping and locking, dropping it like it’s hot, and backing it up. And I certainly don’t mean the kind of dancing that happens when the ubiquitous Umbrella-ella-ella starts to play at Toad’s.
I don’t mean to suggest I frown upon or shun the sort of moves that elicit lines like, “Wanna come back to my room? My twin bed isn’t the only thing that’s extra long.” In fact, I think every doctor would do well to prescribe a low dose of that kind of social interaction. What I’m looking for is a more therapeutic release from the daily (weekendly?) bump and grind — an alternative to the Saturday night trek to Toads.
Where can I find the sweat-soaked hair and clothes kind of dancing, the kind of dancing that starts at your feet and radiates up through your whole body until you’re in a trance? It’s the kind of dancing that doesn’t leave you scanning the room self-consciously, but rather the kind that necessitates a full-body immersion that makes “freaking” impossible. It’s such an elusive experience, one that is difficult enough to find at all, let alone within the confines of the Ivy League. Only twice in my life have I ever experienced this kind of raucous movement: at a !!! (ChkChkChk) concert, and at a Daft Punk concert. I would suggest, however, that there’s more than just techno and dance rock that allows this kind of cathartic rocking out.
In high school, I did a bunch of improvised dance – yes, of the “you’re a beautiful tree! Now you’re trepidation!” variety — so of course my instinct is to dance like nobody’s watching, as the inspirational poster quote goes. I really think everyone has something to gain from this kind of moving. It’s like going to therapy, but instead of a doctor asking, “And how does that make you feel?” you can express it through motion. It’s a tremendous psychological and physical release.
But I’m not delusional – I know most people at Yale wouldn’t go for something so “hippie” or whatever the appropriate adjective might be. Yet I do think it can be achieved at dance parties. So is it really so much to ask that every once in a while we drop all inhibitions and just shake what our mothers gave us, no matter how silly it looks? Who wants to join me in starting a dance (dance) revolution?
Celeste Ballard wishes she could turn off the lights and turn the Daft Punk up to 11.
Dance Dance Yalies! A not-so-subtle call for revolution
Celeste Ballard
Let me tell you about my fantasy: I’m walking down the streets of Soho, kick-ball-changing, shuffle-ball-stepping to the totally chasé-able chorus of ABBA’s “Voulez Vous” I have bumping from my iPod headphones. Just as I bend down to pick up a fully-loaded iTunes gift certificate, Leigh Lezark from the MisShapes, Zooey Deschanel and Chloe Sevigny (three ladies I think look cool all the time) stop me on the street and invite me to what they refer to as THE dance party.
“But she can’t go wearing that!” shrieks Zooey, whipping out a grab bag filled to the brim with hot numbers from Marc Jacobs, 3.1lim and other lines that H&M likes to knock off. “Wait! You forgot the finishing touch!” Chloe says, whimsically pulling a pair of ruby-encrusted Nike Terminators off the backs of two equally ruby encrusted land dolphins who have just swam through the air to the corner of Prince and Elizabeth. I slip them on my feet, gasping, “They’re just my size!” Just as Zooey starts to respond, “Of course they are! This is your fantasy and you’re writing this right—” Leigh interrupts her, shouting, “Quick! To the teleporter!” We step into the frozen goods aisle of the nearest bodega, pull open the door with the Lean Cuisines inside, and everything goes black.
When I open my eyes, I’m inside a set of gates that read Emerald Cit-tay in neon, standing in the middle of a room complete with luminescent green ceilings, walls and floors like some Ian Schrager hotel gone wild. Suddenly, a voice booms over the microphone, “Are you ready to dance?” An invisible DJ scratches his record not once, not twice, but three times, letting the opening moments of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson do the talking.
As the song begins to play, the craziest corps-de-ballet I’ve ever seen enters, dancing with wild abandon and wearing crazy carnivale masks. It’s the most reckless dancing of my life, so naturally I don’t notice when the clock strikes five in the morning. The scene disintegrates, and I wake up on my Tempur-Pedic, the beats of Timbaland, old school Puff Daddy and the Family, and various Euro fare refraining in my ears. But wait! I’m clutching a pair of red sparkley shoes! It wasn’t a dream after all!
At one point in the movie “Dazed and Confused,” the nerd played by Anthony Rapp asks the nerd played by Adam Golberg, “So you’re not gonna go to law school? What do you want to do then?” and in a moment of Linklaterian perfection, Golberg responds desperately and earnestly, “I wanna dance!”
I kept coming back to this line this summer, mostly because I watched every episode of “So You Think You Can Dance?” multiple times, but also because, well, when it comes down to it, the one thing I almost always want to do is dance. It doesn’t matter where I am or what time of day it is. During a particularly jubilatory Shaw’s run the other day, I found myself in the vitamins aisle dancing in front of the Gingko Biloba to the warbled R&B jams of Breezy-Nostalgia FM.
I’m not referring to easy dances like the Bunny Hop or The Hokey Pokey. Nor do I mean choreographed routines, like those you might find at a Danceworks show, packed with popping and locking, dropping it like it’s hot, and backing it up. And I certainly don’t mean the kind of dancing that happens when the ubiquitous Umbrella-ella-ella starts to play at Toad’s.
I don’t mean to suggest I frown upon or shun the sort of moves that elicit lines like, “Wanna come back to my room? My twin bed isn’t the only thing that’s extra long.” In fact, I think every doctor would do well to prescribe a low dose of that kind of social interaction. What I’m looking for is a more therapeutic release from the daily (weekendly?) bump and grind — an alternative to the Saturday night trek to Toads.
Where can I find the sweat-soaked hair and clothes kind of dancing, the kind of dancing that starts at your feet and radiates up through your whole body until you’re in a trance? It’s the kind of dancing that doesn’t leave you scanning the room self-consciously, but rather the kind that necessitates a full-body immersion that makes “freaking” impossible. It’s such an elusive experience, one that is difficult enough to find at all, let alone within the confines of the Ivy League. Only twice in my life have I ever experienced this kind of raucous movement: at a !!! (ChkChkChk) concert, and at a Daft Punk concert. I would suggest, however, that there’s more than just techno and dance rock that allows this kind of cathartic rocking out.
In high school, I did a bunch of improvised dance – yes, of the “you’re a beautiful tree! Now you’re trepidation!” variety — so of course my instinct is to dance like nobody’s watching, as the inspirational poster quote goes. I really think everyone has something to gain from this kind of moving. It’s like going to therapy, but instead of a doctor asking, “And how does that make you feel?” you can express it through motion. It’s a tremendous psychological and physical release.
But I’m not delusional – I know most people at Yale wouldn’t go for something so “hippie” or whatever the appropriate adjective might be. Yet I do think it can be achieved at dance parties. So is it really so much to ask that every once in a while we drop all inhibitions and just shake what our mothers gave us, no matter how silly it looks? Who wants to join me in starting a dance (dance) revolution?
Celeste Ballard wishes she could turn off the lights and turn the Daft Punk up to 11.
Scenic Views Column: Apatow 9/7/07
Published: Friday, September 7, 2007
Apatow gets us super ‘Knocked Up’
Let me tell you about my fantasy: I’m sitting at home, lounging on my queen-sized Tempur-pedic in a burnt umber cashmere sweatsuit eating loads and loads of Now and Laters, JuJuBes and other impossible-to-chew candy. I’ve just finished a huge dinner of Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan with Mango Chutney, and I’m ready to spend some quality alone time.
Suddenly, the door bursts open, and in busts a slightly out-of-shape, nerdy-looking dude who is almost unbearably earnest when he asks if he can join me on my bed filled with piles of oversized plush Pound Puppies. He sits down and says he has brought something I’m sure to enjoy. As I gaze into his eyes and recall the lyrics of Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie, he hands me a box wrapped in Rainbow Bright wrapping paper.
“I didn’t even know they made this sort of festive paper!” I exclaim. “It’s vintage,” he responds nervously. I unwrap the paper, careful not to tear it, because I’m going to save it later to collage onto my wall. Inside lies the first season of Adult Swim’s “Robot Chicken” on DVD. We watch four episodes in a row, stay up talking about the latest YouTube viral video, fall asleep lightly touching hands and become best friends.
No, it’s not the most titillating fantasy in the world. Yet every show and movie I’ve really enjoyed in the last few years has told me that this is the guy for me. A guy who is not in the least bit threatening and who most likely bruises like a peach.
First there was Seth Cohen on “The O.C.” I’m referring, of course, only to the first two seasons, when he was actually witty and not dating the hottest chick at school (Anna was such a better match, duh). Then came Jim from the American version of “The Office.” How I swoon when he smirks at the camera and looks longingly at Pam! Last but not least, there’s Judd Apatow’s all-male neo-Brat Pack of sorts, all of whom happen to be pop-culture referencing, Comic-Con attending, funny dudes who like to hang out and improvise jokes. (Oh be still my beating heart when I think about Paul Rudd as every Paul Rudd character, because he’s a comedic goldmine!)
“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” celebrate the awkward, the lumbering, the earnest, and the misguided with the nerd-tastic triumvirate of Steve Carrell, Seth Rogan, and Michael Cera. Respectively, they are the childish-man, the man-child, and the child-child. And I love them all.
But I don’t want you to walk away from reading this just thinking that I’ve maybe shared a little too much information about my crushes with the entire Yale campus. I want you to realize that Apatow stands among the best of the best when it comes to comedies made for our generation, because he lets the dudes be dudes, and in doing so, captures what it’s actually like to be young and weird.
For the most part, I’ve really disliked the selection of high-school/young people comedies I’ve seen that were made for my generation. “Never Been Kissed,” “She’s All That,” “Varsity Blues” and generally any other movie starring the Freddie Prinz Juniors and Paul Walkers of the world are not the least bit insightful into what it’s like to be in high school.
“Cruel Intentions” was fun when we were pre-teens, were still really into The Counting Crows and had never seen two girls kiss before. “Empire Records” holds a special place because it taught us to “damn the man, save the empire.” In my book, the only certifiably hilarious and smart comedies that take place in a world actually like high school (sorry, Will Ferrell vehicles) are “Clueless,” “Dazed and Confused” and “Mean Girls.”
What Amy Heckerling did for the 80s and 90s, and what Richard Linklater did for the 70s, Judd Apatow does for the 90s. He gets us, ya’ll! “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” are movies with a boner AND a heart!
Yes, the females in these movies are relegated to playing the role of either boring straight woman (Catherine Keener, Katherine Heigl, that other chick I can only assume is some iteration of the name Catherine) or crazy and/or slutty (Elizabeth Banks’ bath tub scene, Leslie Mann’s drunk driver, that girl in Superbad who does a pitch-perfect pre-pubescent strip routine). Yet even so, I can forgive him, because the appearance of Charlyne Yi and the always-stellar Mann gives me hope for the heroines of his future projects.
And when it comes down to it, these characters could exist! At Yale! Right now! Do you want to come over and play N64 and talk about “Flight of the Conchords”?
Apatow gets us super ‘Knocked Up’
Let me tell you about my fantasy: I’m sitting at home, lounging on my queen-sized Tempur-pedic in a burnt umber cashmere sweatsuit eating loads and loads of Now and Laters, JuJuBes and other impossible-to-chew candy. I’ve just finished a huge dinner of Chicken Tikka Masala and Naan with Mango Chutney, and I’m ready to spend some quality alone time.
Suddenly, the door bursts open, and in busts a slightly out-of-shape, nerdy-looking dude who is almost unbearably earnest when he asks if he can join me on my bed filled with piles of oversized plush Pound Puppies. He sits down and says he has brought something I’m sure to enjoy. As I gaze into his eyes and recall the lyrics of Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie, he hands me a box wrapped in Rainbow Bright wrapping paper.
“I didn’t even know they made this sort of festive paper!” I exclaim. “It’s vintage,” he responds nervously. I unwrap the paper, careful not to tear it, because I’m going to save it later to collage onto my wall. Inside lies the first season of Adult Swim’s “Robot Chicken” on DVD. We watch four episodes in a row, stay up talking about the latest YouTube viral video, fall asleep lightly touching hands and become best friends.
No, it’s not the most titillating fantasy in the world. Yet every show and movie I’ve really enjoyed in the last few years has told me that this is the guy for me. A guy who is not in the least bit threatening and who most likely bruises like a peach.
First there was Seth Cohen on “The O.C.” I’m referring, of course, only to the first two seasons, when he was actually witty and not dating the hottest chick at school (Anna was such a better match, duh). Then came Jim from the American version of “The Office.” How I swoon when he smirks at the camera and looks longingly at Pam! Last but not least, there’s Judd Apatow’s all-male neo-Brat Pack of sorts, all of whom happen to be pop-culture referencing, Comic-Con attending, funny dudes who like to hang out and improvise jokes. (Oh be still my beating heart when I think about Paul Rudd as every Paul Rudd character, because he’s a comedic goldmine!)
“The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” celebrate the awkward, the lumbering, the earnest, and the misguided with the nerd-tastic triumvirate of Steve Carrell, Seth Rogan, and Michael Cera. Respectively, they are the childish-man, the man-child, and the child-child. And I love them all.
But I don’t want you to walk away from reading this just thinking that I’ve maybe shared a little too much information about my crushes with the entire Yale campus. I want you to realize that Apatow stands among the best of the best when it comes to comedies made for our generation, because he lets the dudes be dudes, and in doing so, captures what it’s actually like to be young and weird.
For the most part, I’ve really disliked the selection of high-school/young people comedies I’ve seen that were made for my generation. “Never Been Kissed,” “She’s All That,” “Varsity Blues” and generally any other movie starring the Freddie Prinz Juniors and Paul Walkers of the world are not the least bit insightful into what it’s like to be in high school.
“Cruel Intentions” was fun when we were pre-teens, were still really into The Counting Crows and had never seen two girls kiss before. “Empire Records” holds a special place because it taught us to “damn the man, save the empire.” In my book, the only certifiably hilarious and smart comedies that take place in a world actually like high school (sorry, Will Ferrell vehicles) are “Clueless,” “Dazed and Confused” and “Mean Girls.”
What Amy Heckerling did for the 80s and 90s, and what Richard Linklater did for the 70s, Judd Apatow does for the 90s. He gets us, ya’ll! “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” are movies with a boner AND a heart!
Yes, the females in these movies are relegated to playing the role of either boring straight woman (Catherine Keener, Katherine Heigl, that other chick I can only assume is some iteration of the name Catherine) or crazy and/or slutty (Elizabeth Banks’ bath tub scene, Leslie Mann’s drunk driver, that girl in Superbad who does a pitch-perfect pre-pubescent strip routine). Yet even so, I can forgive him, because the appearance of Charlyne Yi and the always-stellar Mann gives me hope for the heroines of his future projects.
And when it comes down to it, these characters could exist! At Yale! Right now! Do you want to come over and play N64 and talk about “Flight of the Conchords”?
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