Dreamers / they never learn / they never learn
This morning, Radiohead graced us with the second single, Daydreamers, taken from their new album to be released on Sunday.
There’s something so poignant and beautiful about an alternative rock band’s more introspective work. This quality exists in bucket loads in the work of the members of celebrated alt rock group, Radiohead, and it is one of the characteristics that endears them to me the most. From the release of Fake Plastic Trees in 1995, it has been clear that Radiohead is as talented at creating stripped down tracks as rich in emotion and meaning as their bigger, atmospheric sounds. In today’s stunning release, Daydreaming, the band offers us the best of both. This piano and lyric driven track is recorded within a haze of clashing electronic noises, and it is equal parts gritty and delicate.
As the song commences, it is somehow more reminiscent of Explosions in the Sky than of Radiohead’s prior work. A simultaneously melancholic and uplifting classical piano riff eases us into the song. Yorke’s incredibly raw, slightly dissonant singing join the fray, soon to be joined by what is probably an interesting texture, pulled from his vocal recordings and then an intensified, irregular piano arpeggio. The song begins to showcase Radiohead’s beautifully unique collection of musical and vocal wonders that have lead to such a successful and prolific career.
It’s difficult to dwell on the technical aspects of Radiohead’s latest offering for the simple reason that it is so richly emotive that I am swept up in my own experience of the song before I notice the details it consists of. This in itself speaks volumes of the musical content – for a collection of elements so jarring, they are somehow blended together in such a seamless manner that I forget to be critical. Listen to Daydreaming for a moment of reprieve from the chaos and rush of your life – you won’t regret it.
