Last night, I watched a documentary on Radiohead from right around the release of Kid A that featured a sit down running commentary/interview between Thom Yorke and a British journalist. Yorke was his usual self, which is to say, unusual. The journalist, whose name I did not catch, commented on Yorke's relative obscurity when compared with front men of other similar (i use that term loosely) bands like U2 and R.E.M. The comment went something like,
If Bono or Michael Stipe released a solo album right now, almost everyone would know who they were. However, people don't know who Thom Yorke is, and you would really have to do a lot more work to sell records of your solo album than the lead singer of U2 or R.E.M. would.
I totally agree with what the journalist was getting at, even though Thom Yorke probably cares (or makes it seem like he does) less about moving units than Bono or Stipe. It got me thinking on a somewhat different subject - what effect does an artist's work with a group have on the way critiques are given to that artist's solo output? More importantly, what effect did Thom Yorke's career with Radiohead have on how his solo album from 2006, The Eraser, was perceived?
I feel that Radiohead have only released one album that wasn't any good. Their debut, Pablo Honey, is largely forgettable, except for that one song. So, after that, the guys have released five albums that have been great albums, with OK Computer and Kid A being next to perfect. To many, Thom Yorke is a deity. Radiohead may be the only band with underground credibility that can sell millions and millions of records (and they will whenever LP7 drops). I can't think of any other band to sell records like that and not lose their stripes with the scene, although how important those stripes are is debatable. But the truth of it still is, Thom Yorke can do no wrong in the eyes of the Radiohead super fans. Just got to the message boards at Ateaseweb or Mortigi Tiempo to find that out.
How did The Eraser start? A mysterious website surfaced called The eraser with strange art and odd sounds. Radiohead fans that found the link on a Radiohead blog looked up the IP address and found that it was registered to a man who was generally associated with Radiohead, either producer Nigel Godrich or artist Stanley Donwood. Usually, any Radiohead news is enough to make fans foam at the mouth, but it had been three years since the last band release, so any news was big news in the Summer of 2006. Let it sink in that the fans of Radiohead are so obsessed, they track down the owners of IP addresses for websites they only have vague hunches about. A few days after the website was running, news of what The Eraser was started to spread. In a matter of a couple weeks, the album had leaked, and in less than a month, the album was out proper on July 11, 2006.
And it got mixed reviews.
Yorke's The Eraser wasn't polarizing. We aren't talking In the Aeroplane Over the Sea 'best record ever!'/'piece of garbage' here. But some thought it was a contender for album of the year (Shortlist) and some just thought it was an album released that year (Pitchfork). I tended towards the Pitchfork side of things, while the person I discussed the album with the most saw it as one of the top releases. I was a little disappointed with the production when I first listened to the album. Expecting the same crispness from Godrich and Yorke that was delivered on all the band albums, Yorke's solo excursion lacks dynamics for the most part. Even more crippling than that, from start to finish it sounds flat and compressed. Live versions of songs sound strikingly better than studio versions, as evidenced by Yorke's acoustic strip-down of "The Clock" from the Henry Rollins Show. Live versions should not sound better than studio version if you're working with a glitch record.
Even for the album's faults, it debuted at number 2 in the United States and sold a total of 90,000 copies worldwide. At least that many were probably leaked. Of course, people were picking up the record simply because it was the lead singer from Radiohead. How else would a debut album with no "Creep" to call its own shoot that high? I think the same people who were running out to pick up The Eraser for that reason were largely the people who gave it such glowing reviews (like the majority of British critics did) when there were equally worthy or even better albums recorded in the same year like Islands' Return to the Sea, Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope, Joanna Newsom's Ys, the Blow's Paper Television, and some would say TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain. All those albums were better than Yorke's, and they sold less. Not only that, but you could make a case that Spektor's album and The Blow's record were both easily more mainstream and accessible than The Eraser. I can't help but feel that most of Yorke's success is due to riding the coattails of his band. I enjoyed the album, to be sure. However, I am bugged by the feeling that Thom Yorke's album stole the spotlight from more deserving works. I know he didn't want this to be a big deal. But in the end, it was, at least to me.
The release and hype over The Eraser can be seen as a sort of predicament to music fans - how do you fairly evaluate the music when you are familiar and opinionated about the artist's previous work? Of course, writing reviews is never unbiased, but what if that the bias ends up changing the entire discussion of music for the year? I hope someone can give me some insight about this, or just general thoughts about The Eraser and the subject at hand.
And it got mixed reviews.
Yorke's The Eraser wasn't polarizing. We aren't talking In the Aeroplane Over the Sea 'best record ever!'/'piece of garbage' here. But some thought it was a contender for album of the year (Shortlist) and some just thought it was an album released that year (Pitchfork). I tended towards the Pitchfork side of things, while the person I discussed the album with the most saw it as one of the top releases. I was a little disappointed with the production when I first listened to the album. Expecting the same crispness from Godrich and Yorke that was delivered on all the band albums, Yorke's solo excursion lacks dynamics for the most part. Even more crippling than that, from start to finish it sounds flat and compressed. Live versions of songs sound strikingly better than studio versions, as evidenced by Yorke's acoustic strip-down of "The Clock" from the Henry Rollins Show. Live versions should not sound better than studio version if you're working with a glitch record.
Even for the album's faults, it debuted at number 2 in the United States and sold a total of 90,000 copies worldwide. At least that many were probably leaked. Of course, people were picking up the record simply because it was the lead singer from Radiohead. How else would a debut album with no "Creep" to call its own shoot that high? I think the same people who were running out to pick up The Eraser for that reason were largely the people who gave it such glowing reviews (like the majority of British critics did) when there were equally worthy or even better albums recorded in the same year like Islands' Return to the Sea, Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope, Joanna Newsom's Ys, the Blow's Paper Television, and some would say TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain. All those albums were better than Yorke's, and they sold less. Not only that, but you could make a case that Spektor's album and The Blow's record were both easily more mainstream and accessible than The Eraser. I can't help but feel that most of Yorke's success is due to riding the coattails of his band. I enjoyed the album, to be sure. However, I am bugged by the feeling that Thom Yorke's album stole the spotlight from more deserving works. I know he didn't want this to be a big deal. But in the end, it was, at least to me.
The release and hype over The Eraser can be seen as a sort of predicament to music fans - how do you fairly evaluate the music when you are familiar and opinionated about the artist's previous work? Of course, writing reviews is never unbiased, but what if that the bias ends up changing the entire discussion of music for the year? I hope someone can give me some insight about this, or just general thoughts about The Eraser and the subject at hand.
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