AN EPITAPH FOR THE ALBUM?

Is anyone else distressed to learn that Thom Yorke, the genius at the mic of Radiohead, finds crafting albums "a real drag"? As reported in the New York Times:

“None of us wants to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again,” Mr. Yorke told the Believer, a literary magazine based in San Francisco. “Not straight off. I mean, it’s just become a real drag. It worked with ‘In Rainbows’ because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going. But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.”

Radiohead’s shift to singles reflects a change in music fans’ preferences. Instead of buying whole albums, they now stream or download just the songs they want. That, along with unauthorized copying, has decimated industry revenues.

The story was forwarded to me by a friend and colleague who has long heralded the rise of singles over albums. I happen to think that cherry-picking individual songs has all the sophistication of fast-forwarding through slow stretches of an Ingmar Bergman film. Indeed, I've always been embarassed for this colleague and his gauche understanding of music. But if Thom Yorke, one of the men responsible for some of the best albums of the last 15 years, has decided that long-playing toils are just a bunch of "hoo-ha", what are we to do?

~ EMILY BOBROW

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You're so right. It is

August 28, 2009 - 21:52 — Visitor (not verified)

You're so right. It is indeed disheartening that one of the last mainstream album craftsman is making statements like that. Then again, he and his band are at a point in their career where they've invested so much time making vanguard opuses that the shift to singles or releasing webcam covers of Mancunian chestnuts seems to be less market or zeitgeist-driven and just more creatively satisfying.

To put a little more perspective on it, Yorke's forebear, John Lennon, had nothing but disdain for Pepper, but only AFTER he had done it, released it, made a fortune, and ensconced himself and his band in pop immortality. And what's the White Album but a collection of singles and idiosyncratic side numbers? And yet...what a great album.

Perhaps some "disjointed" work will be just the thing to wean Radiohead away from their Pink Floyd "rut".