Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Chasing Rainbows

I'm not going to review the new Radiohead album because if I did it would just be an anaemic retread of this.

14 comments:

Rimshot said...

Might I be so bold, then, as to suggest a review of the review (with perhaps a Morley to English translation)?

FirstNations said...

really, though, is there anything left to say after wtm? i think not.

St. Anthony said...

Good old Morley - always amusing, always engaging. Do you think he actually forked over that price for the album?

Billy said...

"Imagine giving each track stars - for the distribution process, for the promotional tactics, for performance, for sonically matching the alleged historical nature of the occasion, for all round Radioheadness, for doing the job, for levels of dazzle, for basic competence, for the predicament of the musicians tangled up in their own elegant hype, for the sound, for melodies, for Yorke's voice, for his apparent concerns, for how profound the ideas are, how moving the moment, how cleverly a rhythm or a noise or an effect communicates the idea that there's no business like the business of change."

I love Morley.

Dick Headley said...

Can you recommend any good books on the subject?

Tim F said...

Rimshot: Peasant!

FN: wtm? what the muck? what the meck?

Morley's probably not even listened to it, Anthony. Neither have I, to be honest.

Isn't he a treasure, Billy?

Nah, books are so last century, Dick, haven't you heard?

West said...

Just a few queries regarding Paul Morley's use of language, Tim:

"sonically matching the alleged historical nature of the occasion"

What does he mean by this?

"how cleverly a rhythm or a noise or an effect communicates the idea that there's no business like the business of change"

ditto...

"It would be wrong to review the album as soon as it is available just because it has been made available the way it has been made available..."

[In Chandler Bing voice:]Could he *use* the word 'available' more?...

"abstract divine details"

...which are?

"as if what they do has genuine emotional consequences"

Emotional consequences - is that some sort of parlour game? Or do you mean things like crying or punching a wall or laughing etc??

"and for creating around this atmosphere the right kind of circumstances to convince as many as needs [sic] convincing that what they are doing is profound and unsettling"

Two words spring to mind here; meally and mouthed.

I'm sorry, Morley still doesn't convince me. Orwell would have had a field day with his writing; muddled langauge reveals muddled thinking. "The king is in the altogether, the altogether..."

Bob

Tim F said...

Oh dear, Bob, you're really not going to like the article I've got coming up on CiF this weekend...

West said...

"...just how clearly York"

Is he referring to the city here?

I'm disappointed Tim. Your self esteem must be very low indeed if you don't realise that even on one of your very worst writing days you would be considerably more eloquent than Paul Morley.

"..you're so contrary;
Like a chainsaw running through a dictionary.."

Elvis Costello obviously read his Paul Morley. Even he probably couldn't understand a word of it either...

Bob

wrod vrecififififififificatoin: ochlqad.

Scottish, perhaps?

West said...

"If any of this was for real it might be worth pointing out that what the cynic might at first note as a mundane going through the exquisite, lifelike Radiohead motions might in fact be that the group, on the other side of all the fuss and distraction, have put together enough of a collection - a traditional record, in other words, made straight for vinyl - to suggest that they have completed one kind of mission."

Do you think he wears an iron lung when he writes sentences like that? You certainly need one to read it...

Perhaps he thinks that if he keeps adding another bit on at the end, the reader will be dragged so far away from his initial point that they'll be too knackered to go back to the beginning to try and decode any sort of meaning from the jumble of words he's seemingly vomitted onto the page in lieu of a coherently thought out and presented collection of ideas and concepts.

Bob

wrod vrecificatoin: stuazpi.

Magyar?

West said...

"naturally in pain clothes"

This is the only piece of writing that leaps out at you.

I bet it's a typo...

West said...

"dinausaurian"

According to Collins, it's "dinosaurian"...

West said...

Recommended retail price?

"Wouldn't give you tuppence for it..."

Tim F said...

That's the wonder of live blogging, Bob. No subbing allowed.

But as I say, wait for the weekend. There's a quick compare and contrast, and Morley comes out on top...