This is from Radiohead’s recent A Moon Shaped Pool, which I’ve been listening to a whole lot, and oh my goodness what a beautiful song.
I came to Radiohead late, missed them completely on the way up. For years all I knew was they were the band behind the OK Computer hits on the radio, but I guess I’m a fan now. I like pretty well all of Moon Shaped Pool, and it’s an absolute production triumph, the kind of thing I put on when people ask why I still have a big hulking old-school audiophile system down at that end of the room. The songs are strong but the whole album is a carefully-conceived end-to-end piece of work, a huge wide swatch of beautiful sonic fabric. Kid A was trying to be the same thing, but the tunes and sounds are just more beautiful here.
Identikit mixes multiple melodies, all strong, and deploys the most beautiful instrument currently existing in popular music, namely Thom Yorke’s voice. I can’t make sense of the lyrics, but I only put about fifteen seconds into trying to make them out which is about ten seconds more than I usually devote to pop words.
Another thing to like here is the song’s clean emphatic ending. Maybe it’s because I listen to and sometimes play classical music, but I do think a great song should come to a great end; few pop musicians pay enough attention to this.
This is part of the Song of the Day series (background).
Links · iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, live video - more powerful, more official. It’s interesting to watch the song develop in the videos over the years.
