I first heard this track when watching a shaky YouTube broadcast of a live performance.  Even when watching from a distance, the song’s power clearly permeates through a haze of smoke and blue light drowning the stage and the performers upon it.  Without pretense or electronic layovers, but only a smooth voice and the strum of a guitar, Thom Yorke manages to quiet a Madison square garden crowd and, compel them to clap in unison.

Forget about your house of cards, he sings, almost as if he knows as well as we do watching him perform, that we’ve wasted the greater part of this year listening to music that was less than the quality we should expect.

In music, in fashion, the best way to avoid products that cut corners in order to keep up with current trends is to support those industry members with solid footing in their fields.  Those loyal to the label wear it for impeccable fit, not recognition or because it happens to be ‘in’ at the present time.  Radiohead simply display the talent audiences crave in music.  They make you make you stop and think or turn for a second glance.  Their quality stands the test of time in industries where fads come up and fall back down as quickly as, well, a house of cards!

Nadja Sumter

Filed under: Music