Till My Head Falls Off 07.02.03: Believe The Hype, Don't Believe The Hype

For Your Listening Pleasure
Liz Phair – Liz Phair

Is it bad when a song called “Hot White Cum” is so catchy it, uh, gets stuck in your mind for days? Don’t answer that.

News to You
Yawn, what a boring summer of music news so far. What do we have? Suge Knight punching a parking lot attendant ’cause he didn’t like where the valet left his car, and Mrs. Eminem, Kim Mathers, getting arrested for cocaine possession. What, no new Weiland news this week?

Everything old is new again…

Believe the Hype, Don’t Believe the Hype
“Outside of a song here or there, [The Bends is] the only SOLID album by this over-rated band.” — Me, two weeks ago

Now, you may be thinking: “where’s Matt been for two whole weeks?” Funny you should ask…

Talk about getting a lot of heat for ONE SENTENCE of a 1400+ word column! Moments after my column was posted online, I was barraged with an assortment of flame-mail, telling me all about how I don’t know anything, and my music columnist credibility (I had any of that?) was shot due to my flip comments about the almighty Radiohead.

I haven’t seen so many people get this heated about a rock band in a long, long time. Besides the email conversations that I held with some of these Radiohead fans, similar discussions have popped up over the last few weeks — both defending and destroying Radiohead and the band’s loyalists — in other arenas, from message boards that I frequent to this Monday’s news column by fellow 411mania music columnist Ryan T. Murphy.

I don’t have enough space here to reprint EVERY comment sent to me on the subject, but the key issue involved is an interesting one. As I discuss it, then, it only makes sense to call upon some reader feedback to help get me through this — while both discussing Radiohead specifically, as well as the larger ideas of “overrated” and “over-hyped”.

Let me start off by saying that my initial comment — calling Radiohead “overrated” — is solely based on my opinion and my general taste. Plain and simple, I think the band tries to do too much for the sake of doing too much… and while I like their catchier, “on the edge” stuff, the experimental “over the edge” works are what tends to turn me off. As I’ll explain later, this isn’t a condemnation of the band and all of its music… just a general taste-based statement, and one of the first things that comes to my mind when I think of this band.

Dustin was the harshest, and among the first, of my critics:

This basically makes me want to never read any of your music columns ever again… I mean, this from someone who put Scenario and DWYCK on his top ten driving list. Why don’t you just put Can’t Touch This and Bust a Move on there while you’re at it and then you can sell the mix on one of those late night commercials – Rap Hits of the 80s!

WHOA! Not read my columns ever again? Isn’t that a bit much? Let’s see what Newman has to say:

I don’t need to prove you wrong. Radiohead already did when they released OK Computer. There are certain albums that over the years have been called “influential” and “groundbreaking” that are absolute crap i.e. Big Black, Captain Beefheart and many other bands no one really listens to. Then there are certain albums that are just universally acknowledged as “good music.” Albums that, while they may not affect you to the extent it does most people, just cannot be fronted on. Innervisions, Zeppelin II, What’s Going On, Portishead, OK Computer. Albums that anyone with more than a fleeting interest in music would appreciate, if not enjoy. And if you’re going to capitalize the word SOLID, I would make the argument that Pablo Honey is a SOLID, if unremarkable, alt-rock album that, if Radiohead broke up after that one, would still be an (while not classic) important, entry into the 90s alternative rock scene. I’ll put “Stop Whispering” and “Creep” up against Cracker, Sparklehorse, Better than Ezra or any other “one big hit and break” band. (Oh wait, I almost forgot about another 90s alt-rock band called Dave Mathews Band who I believe you are very into. So let me see if this is right. DMB is amazing. Radiohead is overrated. I think he writes some great songs yet this sounds like a person who loves top 40 radio and would consider Evanescence the apotheosis of nu-metal.) [See, that’s the joke, almost all nu-metal is pretty unoriginal and boo.] Anyone who you have to explain why OK Computer is a good album to is a questionable authority to write a music column. While your knowledge is clearly vast, it is clear after that statement that your tastes, at times, are quite dubious.

Oh, and like the mistress who tells her lover’s wife about the affair just to hurt him, I showed my lover, Edgar, your statement to which my blunt friend replied, “I’ll kill him.”

Looks like I have to rebut that one:

First off, Dustin, are you really comparing “Can’t Touch This” to “DWYCK”?

Secondly, I could think Radiohead was the best band in the world, but whether or not I think it is good driving music is mutually exclusive.

Third, you should keep reading my columns. They’re awesome.

Newman, please tell your friend Edgar not to kill me. He’s a lot bigger. Thank you.

And I never said Dave Matthews Band was awesome. I think they’re a pretty good band, with some good songs. Probably around the same level of “quality rock music” as Radiohead, maybe a little better, maybe a little worse… who knows? I refuse to judge such things in this particular column. But here’s the rub: I like DMB’s songs MORE. Even though BOTH DMB and Radiohead are indeed overrated in my opinion.

Here’s why.

I liked “Creep” — I agree with your point 100%, that Pablo Honey was a good alt-rock album. Bends was SOLID, plain and simple. Definitely on the edge. Then what did they do? They slowly but surely went over that edge, and took my interest with them. I like a few songs on OK Computer — “Karma Police” is infectious — but when it dropped, everyone and their sister was proclaiming it the second coming of sliced bread. Wait. I think I just mixed my metaphors. You know what I mean. The album was touted as the greatest thing ever, and I just wasn’t feeling it. Does that mean it’s “bad”? Of course not. Mine is just one man’s opinion. But I DO feel that it was over-rated.

Moving right along, to Kid A and Amnesiac… I just can’t listen to them. Looking at reviews of Hail to the Thief, and hearing a little bit of it the other day, I think it’s more along the lines of the Radiohead I can slide into the CD player, sit back and enjoy, but that’s just from hearing a song or two. For all I know, it’s just a continuation of Kid Amnesiac, and if that’s the case, it’s not my thing.

Just because I don’t drool over everything a band does doesn’t make me unqualified to be a music columnist. Would you respect me more if I simply followed the crowd?

Do I like Top 40 radio? Sometimes. I admit that songs that are imbedded in your skull are the most fun to sing along to, pep you up, and inspire you to cruise in whatever it is you like to cruise in. I admit that the 15 “driving” songs that I listed in my column isn’t the end-all, be-all. But I’ll defend “DWYCK” to the end… even to Edgar.

Credit: Dustinland

Let’s go back to Dustin one more time:

Personally, I think that OK Computer is one of the greatest albums of all time. Not once does it ever try to do to much, not once is it ever obnoxious or pretentious. The songs are beautiful, the theme of the album is fantastic (dehumanization in this modern world) and the album flows perfectly. Songs like Let Down and Subterranean Homesick Alien have at times almost reduced me to tears they are so beautiful. Go sit down and listen to tracks 3-5 and tell me that isn’t some of the most incredible music you’ve ever heard. In fact, solid doesn’t even come close to describing this album, yet you wont even go that far… In the end, I can see how someone would like The Bends more than OK Computer, and hey, whatever floats your boat. But if you’re going to call them out and insult them in a sly way where you’re not really saying it, but you are implying it, expect fans of theirs to call you out on it big time, because OK Computer has affected a lot of people very deeply. Most of the people I know who love that album are not caught up in the hype – they simply love the album because it is amazing.

This is a very interesting perspective, and I’ll admit that at the time I received this email I hadn’t listened OK Computer many times, and as someone else pointed out to me, maybe doing so – or even seeing them live — would help me make a better judgment. But doesn’t it say something that after hearing the album a couple of times through, I didn’t WANT to? And I wasn’t trying to insult anyone in a sly way. “Overrated” doesn’t mean “bad”, doesn’t mean “sucks”, doesn’t mean “worthless”. It doesn’t mean anything insulting. I admitted above that Dave Matthews Band is overrated, yet I’m a fan. Should I be mad at myself for that?

To be fair, I hated Nirvana’s In Utero the first time I heard it, and it really grew on me, and now I just love the album, probably for similar reasons Radiohead fans have connected to OK Computer.

Oh yeah, and since writing the column, I have listened to OK Computer a few more times, and I’ll admit that it is a SOLID album, with three caveats:

1 – There are a good 4 songs on it that are “skippable” in my eyes, which off the bat makes it not the greatest album of the millennium, as some may think;

2 – I like The Bends better; and

3 – I still think the band is overrated, largely because of Kid A, Amnesiac, and the ridiculous amount of hype the band gets whenever a member does so much as passes gas. Do I directly blame the band for that? No. But it still bothers me.

It also bothers JD, who has this to say (a bit edited for brevity):

Radiohead is utter bullshit… a creation of media hype on a level Britney Spears could only dream. Their popularity – not to mention their unassailable credibility – comes solely and completely from the tidal wave of critic-spoo gushed all over OK Computer, an album so arch it almost doubled back over itself in parody, whose processed hipness was calculated to woo music journalists the way Britney’s wardrobe is tailored for the MTV brass.

The end result is the same: nobody liked Radiohead until they were told to like ’em.

I mean, wow – themes of alienation and depersonalization! Rock has certainly never mined this ground before. But hey, it’s perfect high-concept fodder for the desperate music critic, who delivers his Grail unto kids who don’t know better but are just begging to be told that they do…

…Thanks to the barrage of crit-hype and the four-year parade of magazine covers pronouncing them “the best band in the world,” Radiohead are the beneficiaries of the most unique negative-reinforcement packaging in rock history: it’s not that you’re cool if you like Radiohead. It’s that you’re UNCOOL and STUPID if you don’t.

Here’s the HIGH ART STIGMA in full effect – if you don’t like it, it isn’t because it’s poop; it’s ’cause you’re too ignorant to “get it”…

…I think the album is a parody of itself in that Radiohead handles pretty standard rock/cultural clichés as if they’re the first band to ever address the subjects. A self-satisfied cluelessness hangs over the overblown proceedings. OK Computer is a parody of itself in the way a vegan paint-bombing fur coats is a parody of an activist.

Well, there’s a different point of view!

I think JD’s got some great points about the hype and the “high art stigma” — I can’t stand when someone tells me what I “should” and “should not” like. But just because the band is over-hyped doesn’t mean they’re still not a quality group, right? And even though Radiohead tackles subjects that aren’t “new”, a lot of fans heard Radiohead for the first time WHILE they were going through their first real feelings of alienation, so it’s no surprise that they feel so connected to the band. You can look at that point two ways: either Radiohead’s music connected with fans because of the way it tackled these feelings, or the fans connected to Radiohead — as opposed to other bands talking about the same subjects — because Radiohead is the band that happened to be out at the time. I guess the question remains: at what point are we so turned off or turned on by the hype, where the hype and NOT the quality of the material is what defines our attitude towards a particular musician or artist?

Carl chimes in on the subject:

…bands like Radiohead…get lots of critical praise and sell lots of albums because of it…but to attack them while there are so many others more deserving of our hatred and bile, (The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Hives) whose music is actually crap, makes little sense to me… Bands like the Hives (for example) get over-exposure on MTV and VH1 and show up at f*cking Fashion shows!! I got problems with bands worrying about what they look like then learning how to play coherently…

Again, another interesting perspective… Let me try to close this column by tackling the overrated/over-hyped topic one last time, with a variety of run-on sentences:

1 – First of all, overrated doesn’t mean “isn’t good”. There are plenty of solid bands/musicians that are good enough, but the hype machine takes off, and they venture into “overrated” territory.

2 – Music geekdom doesn’t help. The more of a snob or a geek you are, the more the chance you’ll be passionate about bands that you’re a fan(atic) of. From major label (Radiohead) fans to indie fans. It’s just the way it is. But when the critics and the music press — the biggest music geeks of them all — jump on a BANDwagon (pun intended), that’s when the over-hype and over-ratedness goes into over-drive. And while this is great for the fans, who in a lot of ways feel vindication from getting the approval of the critics (even though you get a few that will no doubt end up thinking their faves “sold out” by getting all this attention), it can get REALLY overbearing… especially when the fans get that “holier-than-thou” attitude about themselves, and start telling you that you don’t know what you’re talking about if THEIR favorites aren’t YOURS. Snobbery indeed. And, no, that’s not the case for all fans of said band. It’s just the case for the loudest and most passionate ones. We all do it (I’m pretty sure it’s in our programming), but YOU have no right to tell ME what to like, or that my opinion doesn’t matter.

3 – The innocent music snobs (is there such a thing?) get caught in the cross-fire. What happens is you have the fans that I described above, that think, for example, Radiohead is the greatest band ever, and if you don’t agree with them, you’re an idiot, and the music is ‘above’ you… and you have those who feel that Radiohead is an overrated bunch of snobs who’ve drank their own Kool Aid and think they’re the next best thing since sliced bread, and don’t do anything special enough musically or lyrically to warrant all of the praise. And the casual fans get caught in the middle of it. The fan who doesn’t think they’re holier than thou, who likes Radiohead, thinks they’re a quality band, who writes pretty songs, experiments a little bit with sounds, pushes the boundaries, etc., but doesn’t think they are the greatest thing in the world EVER… this fan can’t win no matter what he/she says!

I guess that’s why this is a debate best left to music geeks. But still, it’s been an interesting one, and I’ve broken 2500 words for the last time in a while, I promise!

Keep your thoughts coming though. I’m sure I missed 7 or 8 good points as I tried to keep up with all of your feedback. And I haven’t even touched on some of the great “driving music” lists some of you sent me!

Until next week…

peace. love. moe.

– Matt

Till My Head Falls Off can be found weekly on 411 Music (old columns are archived in the pull-down menu below). Already hit everything on 411? You can find more from Matthew Michaels at moodspins and 1-42.

Matthew Michaels is one of the original editors of Pulse Wrestling, and was founding editor of Inside Fights and of Inside Pulse Music.