Art Out Of "Noise"

I just got back into town from seeing what is probably the most important band of my generation (definitely one of the most important bands of all time), live at the Hollywood Bowl: Radiohead. The show left me speechless...they performed nearly every song I hoped to hear & they touched on material from every album to date.

Picking Radiohead one album over the other would be near impossible to do because they are each incomparable & amazing in their own right: it's as if each was recorded by a different band. But I've heard from quite a few friends that they weren't as floored with Kid A as I was...this bothered me, and I will try to elaborate on why this album should be given another go-round, hopefully you'll grow to appreciate this album in particular:

I can appreciate every album, especially Kid A through Hail to the Thief, because I understand where it comes from...I hear sounds in everyday life and think of something musical: I recall a specific instance when I was younger, trying to sleep through the "noise" of gardeners, working on the front yard. I was a little annoyed and in-and-out of consciousness, but was mostly in a dream-state. Then there was this sort of Doppler-effect of the motor of a hedge-trimmer as it was being operated. I heard a certain wave pattern and it sounded musical, almost melodic. It immediately woke me up. I remember wanting to capture that sound and record it. And not just for the melody, but for the tone: the specific tonality, timbre and pitch.

And to me, that's what Radiohead's music is; most of their songs on these albums (like the Gloaming and Idioteque, for example) are a collection of these sounds. They are what most people would consider "noise", but put together and organized in a certain pulse or pattern, with a specific beat. "Noise", reminiscent to: circuits traveling though electronic instruments, the blended sounds of voices on an un-dialed-in radio station, frequencies out-of-tune, that snow fuzz-sound of a TV channel off-air, the sound of gas moving through rusty pipes in an old, run-down house, machinery moving in an industrial plant. That's what it is: "noise" pollution, that most people ignore or complain about, all put together to make music…and then, most extraordinary to me, for Thom Yorke to somehow think of an amazing melody line over this?!!? It is nothing short of genius.