I’m writing this post in appreciation of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in general, for a couple of reasons. One is to combat what I view as kind of the “culture vultures,” if you will, who seem to pledge the bizarre allegiance to insulting or disparaging this non-profit institute devoted to recognizing music. They’re as if to say that if the Hall is obliterated, apparently, it will be replaced by something really edifying and meaningful, like a jester juggling on a unicycle, or whatever, and not another panicked, deceitful denizen of capitalistic America such as we’re used to seeing on this nation’s streets.
Another reason why I’m choosing fit to voice praise for the Hall has to do with a really cool enterprise I just discovered — the offering of vinyl records, for sale, in what the Internet officially terms the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum Store.” Now, admittedly, part of why this little-known, majestic place gives me such a you-know-what, is the very fact of it being an in-person vendor, old-school, like you’d find in High Fidelity, or Empire Records, or whatever, and not just bound to online, impersonal retail. And no, I’m not requesting something like Jack Black’s character working there, badgering people — I think we as Americans have been through enough and would laud the Hall for staffing and encouraging friendly, benign and approachable staff.
Further, to pinpoint one specific accomplishment on the part of this store I’ve gleaned in my albeit scant research thus far, I especially like it for giving a home, and giving newound, sustained teeth to, the general concept of Radiohead. Now, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for a while, today, I was really uncertain what this band’s legacy was going to be, in the unfolding decades to come.
Let me preface this with a little bit of history. In the late-’90s, when OK Computer was still a relatively new offering to the world, MTV was without question the most important beacon of society responsible for championing and propagating this band’s great work, thanks, of course, in part, to the unbelievable shots and cinematography they’d offer, as a band, as visuals. In light of this, it’s absolutely unquestionable that “Karma Police” was, by general consensus, the most important song in the band’s catalogue. And sure, eventually, when the populace had readied itself for these tense vanguards, the very act of sitting down and listening to them became a zeitgeist, like a social statement or gesture, in itself. Make no mistake, though — in the waning years of the ’90s, these guys were still seen as the “weirdos” that they professed themselves, completely ignored by radio (as they generally still are), hence obviating the potent significance of their music videos and the popularization thereof by MTV, when pop music could, momentarily at least, be “weird” and still thrive.
Today, I think, if you asked the average person in, forgive me, a place like my current hometown beholden to ample violent crime and a perhaps, um, myopic culture when it comes to the arts, they’d offer that the most important song by this band is “Creep.” This is unfortunate, to me, since, and with which pretty much any critic would agree, the band evolved by leaps and bounds from its first record to its third, the latter generally seen as their artistic zenith, the dark, teeming, deliberately uncomfortable and tyrannical OK Computer. Perhaps it’s the case that it’s just not music that’s meant to be listened to in groups (in which, per Freud’s “herd mentality,” mind you, the human mind does dissolve into something closer to that of an animal), to the extent that the ubiquitous “Creep” might be, a song that, mind you, I would offer as objectively great, at this point, even if it is simplistic as compared its labyrinthine counterpart, from later in the decade. In the Rock Hall’s Museum Store, OK Computer, The Bends and In Rainbows all crack the top 100 of their most popular vinyl records, and as an adoring fan of Radiohead, I love to see this and I commend this institution, the Hall and its little gift shop, for giving credence to what all of us music buffs knew all along — that this is an all-time great band, with a repertoire often misunderstood, and very much worthy of the listening and even handling in cover version, a la Robert Glasper [1], the Easy Star All Stars and so many more.
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Addenda: Robert Glasper’s cover of “Reckoner.”
This is something I think I’ve stated on this blog before but bears repeating. Robert Glasper is a jazz pianist and selected Radiohead’s “Reckoner” as material for an instrumental cover, featuring jazz, some ambient, acoustic drums and a couple of other inconspicuous, everyday instruments. In addition to being excellently done, among the choice material, one thing I’d like to stress toward extolling not only this version but the greatness of Radiohead as a collective and songwriting juggernaut, in general, is that, while so closely assimilating to the original Radiohead version in tempo, melodies, structure and all of the song’s facets, it simultaneously seems to work as a jazz tune, as well. This is something the harsh critics of this band will probably never understand — the way the genres just peel off of this stuff like “stickers on a notebook,” as Rollie Pemberton might have said. I mean, nobody thought of “Reckoner” as a jazz song when they heard it, besides, of course, Robert Glasper, indicative of how much credit should go to him, of course, for his field scouting.
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