Talking Head
Talking ‘Head: A Review of Tim Footman’s Welcome to the Machine: OK Computer and The Death of the Classic Album
Tim Footman likes Radiohead. We know this because he’s written a 261-page book about their 1997 album OK Computer, with all the hyperventilating fangasming this demands. Whether or not you will like this book probably depends on how much you buy into its thesis – that OK Computer is the end-goal of all human knowledge up to the point of its release (and maybe later), and therefore worthy of a bookful of analysis.
For the most part, it works. If you like OK Computer, it’s a fair bet that you’ll find something of interest here. Although the insight that Footman offers varies in quality from one chapter to the next, it’s generally a sound assessment of the content and impact of Radiohead’s magnum opus. The author has certainly done his research – the gleefully abundant footnotes and stringent bibliography help to give the impression that Footman has approached this book like a dissertation, reading every extant piece of prior material about his chosen topic before bringing them all together in a series of essays that run the gamut of pop culture from Pulp to Plato.
Footman (pictured) is an affable guide, acknowledging with a wry aside when he feels he is in danger of paddling in the waters of pretension. Despite the occasionally dry dissection of some of the band’s more enigmatic lyrical and musical offerings, Footman’s humour bubbles up just enough to keep the reader afloat. Although at times the urge to sit him firmly down and play him the “just a band” section of “Thou Shalt Always Kill” becomes a little stronger than might be desirable, Footman can and does criticise his idols on more than one occasion.
I’m inclined to agree with his assessment of “The Tourist” as second-tier, but his disdain for “Electioneering”, in my opinion one of the album’s most immediately gripping cuts, is harder to understand. Footman takes issue with the bluntness of both its politics and its riffs, but for the casual listener – and sorry, Tim, if I sound like a philistine – a bit of balls-out rock comes as a nice pep-up from the faint disconnection that can come as a result of art-rock balls.
Is this music art? Most likely, yes – it takes more time and effort to create than to consume, and it pleases people who listen to music and people in universities who write books about music alike. However, some of Footman’s analysis risks penetrating a little too deeply, while some hovers vaguely on the surface, making comments that the music makes clear enough itself.
There is a danger when looking at mainstream music, even pop as skewed and awkward as Radiohead’s, that people can start to look for things that simply aren’t there. Footman cites the post-structuralist theory that the author is dead in order to pin some slightly questionable sociological tails on his alt-rock donkey, and in some instances a direct chat or two with Thom Yorke might have kept a couple of the wilder guesses in check. However, I don’t presume to guess at the author’s resources or intents; unlike Footman – but again, the majority of his analysis does stand on its own feet, and the logic behind it is relatively difficult to fault.
Towards the end, Footman begins to expound a theory that OK Computer is the last classic rock album, before the Internet ate music and the world was forever changed. In all honesty, it’s quite hard to think of a subsequent release that holds a similar place in the critical pantheon – though that doesn’t mean that such records don’t exist. People are still making great music, in album form; it’s just primarily distributed through MegaUpload rather than your local HMV.
In making such a statement, it seems vaguely implicit that Radiohead have peaked – although they are still recording, if they have essentially killed the classic album, then what they produce in subsequent years must be by extension inferior work. Whether or not you hold this to be true is entirely up to the individual reader, but it’s probably true that a lot of people said a similar kind of thing when the market moved from CD to vinyl. The existence of digital media doesn’t negate an all-time-classic status for future albums – Footman doesn’t seem worried that the Internet will replace books, such as his own. (Whether or not this is the last great music book is a debate for more competent reviewers than I). Despite the prevalence of single-track downloading, I don’t agree that the album has lost its status as a cultural touchstone, for the simple fact that you can still buy hard copies because there are moments when they will be needed. “The new media” (such as 3:AM) hasn’t stopped the production of magazines, and future bands, inspired by Radiohead or otherwise, will still be releasing in the CD format because CDs are still selling.
Whatever you think of the boldness of this assertion, it’s not the whole focus of Welcome To The Machine, and by and large the book is worth a read. The band’s opinion on such scrutiny would probably make for an interesting read as well, but Footman is generally near the mark, and there are certainly worse music writers out there (cf. Pitchfork, Christgau).
It remains to be seen whether or not this is one of the great books about music – probably not, although it isn’t really trying to be – but OK Computer is by common agreement one of the great albums of our time, and Footman handles his material with a reverent proficiency.
Radiohead: just a band? Yes – but a band that many have taken to their hearts, with good cause; and maybe a band worth reading about for the same reasons.
Art?
Maybe.
Classic?
Sure.
Buy this book?
…Go on then.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER:
Richard O’Brien was born in Peterborough in 1990, and has been trying to escape ever since. He is currently still trying to get an education, and resides in a Lincolnshire village with his parents and his labradors with nautical names. He likes to act, listen to music, and write songs that will never be sung.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Monday, May 7th, 2007.
