Thoughts on the new Radiohead album

In case you missed it, Radiohead dropped their new album, King of Limbs, recently.

What's struck me about this is it seems to be a "post-review" release, in that the review matters less than what people think about the idea of reviewing this album.

Here are a few interesting articles I've read about the album:
How long does it take to “get” an album?
Radiohead, 'The King of Limbs' and Music Business Acumen in 2011
On Critical Zeitgeist and Contemplative Cows, Through The Lens of Some English Band…
Metacritic: Critics and fans love it, trolls hate it

It seems people are more interested in pointing out the band's possible decline rather than enjoying the music for what it is - textured and pensive, two adjectives that hardly relate to the cranky netizens of 2011.

I'll go out on a limb (see what I did there?) and say that this one will fit in as a 'transitional' album in their canon. Of course we won't know until the next album, or even subsequent ones, should they choose to keep making albums.

The people whining about King of Limbs (search twitter) strike me as having an awful sense of entitlement, and a feeling as though Radiohead owe them something, and frankly I find it offensive. Radiohead don't owe you anything. They made some seminal, genre changing and generation defining albums, and they nailed a zeitgeist.

To expect anyone to perform at that level indefinitely is remarkably unfair, and it's disrespectful to their great art and the band as human beings. Maybe people are just upset that the band made them pay for something well crafted and of a very high quality after years of getting things for free.

I'll finish with a quote from the Village Voice article posted above:

...I do think Radiohead are Objectively Important, in that they're the rare wildly popular band with wildly experimental instincts, capable of pushing the needle ever so slightly in terms of what the music-listening masses are willing to regard as normal and pleasurable (Kid A is enormous in that respect), I guess I have to admit that I take Radiohead personally. I am protective, I am selfish, I am defensive on both my and their behalves.