You Have Not Being Paying Attention!

Number 25

'Hail to the Thief' by Radiohead

Trotter’s Top Ten position : 1 in 2003

UK Chart high : 1 in 2003

I don't often feel sorry for multi-million selling famous rock stars, but I did spare a thought for Thom and the boys after they released 'Hail to the Thief' in 2003.  You see, although this was fairly well recieved already the music press had started to snipe that it wasn't as boundary-pushing and 'out there' as 'Kid A' or 'Amnesiac', depsite the fact that they'd previously sniped that both those albums were too experimental and had no guitars on them.  In other words, don't bother trying to give 'em what they want!  However, 'Thief' finely balanced their dalliances with electronic noodlings and guitar-driven tunes and even saw them getting sentimental on 'Sail to the Moon', with Thom postulating how his young son Noah might grow up, with all the hopes and fears of a new father wrapped up in a tender piano track.  You've also got the pounding 'There There' with its Beatrix Potter on acid video and the stand-out '2+2=5' which perfectly summed up the 'new' Radiohead sound with the wake up call from Thom of  'You have not being paying attention!'.  This set the tone lyrically for the rest of the album and would be built on in Thom's later solo effort - proof that good things did come out of the twilight Blair years after all, I guess.

Look at 2+2=5 ; Sail To The Moon ; Go To Sleep ; There There

Listen to a sampling of the Top Fifty on Spotify as we go or the 'one from each album' version