Friday, February 18, 2011

A Radiohead Exercise




The new Radiohead record has come out one day earlier than expected, but I won't be listening to The King of Limbs, or reading anything about it, till tomorrow... I've got this whole "listening" "arrangement" planned, involving a forged dispensary license and a couple yoga blocks I stole from an estate-sale.

In the interim, while it's 66 degrees out and the planet's in the throes of geomagnetic gravitas, I thought it would be a fun game to take pause and share a list of, say, twenty (though it might as well be sixty) pre-Limbs Radiohead songs that could conceivably rank as my very favorites ever in the following, arbitrary, authoritarian (always subject-to-change) order. Tell me if you've got any.

(20) [tie]: "Kinetic" [B-side, "Pyramid Song"] + "Where Bluebirds Fly" [B-side, "There There"]

(19) [tie]: "Fog" [B-side, "Knives Out"] + "Talk Show Host" [B-side, "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"]

(18) [tie]: "Bangers & Mash" [Bonus Disc for In Rainbows] + "Just" [The Bends]

(17) [tie]: "Pearly*" [B-side, "Paranoid Android"] + "Fitter Happier" [OK Computer]

(16) "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" [The Bends]

(15) "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" [Amnesiac]

(14) "2 + 2 = 5 (or, The Lukewarm)" [Hail to the Thief]

(13) [tie]: "Weird Fishes / Arpeggi" [In Rainbows] + "Optimistic" [Kid A]

(12) [tie]: "A Punchup at a Wedding (or, No No No No No No No No)" [Hail to the Thief] + "Kid A" [Kid A]

(11) "Let Down" [OK Computer]

(10) "The National Anthem" [Kid A]

(9) [tie]: "How to Disappear Completely" [Kid A] + "Exit Music (For a Film)" [OK Computer]

(8) "Life in a Glasshouse" [Amnesiac]

(7) "Paranoid Android" [OK Computer]

(6) "Jigsaw Falling into Place" [In Rainbows]

(5) [3-way tie]: "Morning Bell" [Kid A] + "Morning Bell" [I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings] + "Like Spinning Plates" [I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings]

(4) "Airbag" [OK Computer]

(3) "Sit Down. Stand Up. (or, Snakes & Ladders)" [Hail to the Thief]

(2) "Everything in Its Right Place" [Kid A]

(1) [tie]: "Like Spinning Plates" [Amnesiac] + "Reckoner" [In Rainbows]





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3 comments:

  1. I'd love to read your opinion on the new album, once you listen to it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will trade you some thoughts on The King of Limbs for a synopsis of the João Bénard da Costa text on Welles. Deal?

    ReplyDelete

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