One of the best music critics writing today is Alex Ross, the classical music critic at the New Yorker. I've mentioned him before because of his splendid article on Radiohead ("The Searchers"), from which I learned a lot about their unique working process. I also enjoyed The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, his 2007 book that lives up to its title, and I continue to enjoy his blog - here's a link: http://www.therestisnoise.com/noise/. But yesterday, while having a look at NPR's excellent music site (http://www.npr.org/music/), I found an interview with Ross regarding his just-released book (Listen to This, which I will look forward to reading soon) wherein he answered a question regarding music that he doesn't care for, with this: "I respect Anton Bruckner and The Rolling Stones — to make a weird duo — but I can't say that I love either of them. I try not to dismiss things too quickly, but the 'blech' reaction is hard to ignore once it kicks in." This surprised me, and I've decided to take it as a challenge. And since I've learned a great deal from his writings, I'll try to reciprocate in writing a defense of the Stones, starting tomorrow, and after some research and listening, Bruckner in a couple of weeks. By the way, here's one last link - to the interview in question: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/11/08/131169818/get-to-know-a-critic-alex-ross-of-the-new-yorker.

Arranging is the step that is missing from a lot of rock music. Many groups consider the song to be finished once the harmony (i.e. the chords) and the melody are done, producing an effect that usually sounds underwritten. If a group features one or more great players, their improvisational abilities (sometimes thought of as "arranging in the moment") can mask this fact. But even better is when the band is comprised of great arrangers, as is the case with Radiohead, a group that has developed their arranging abilities to an unprecedented level in rock music. And they didn't start out that way. Their first album, Pablo Honey (1993), although it shows some of their promise, almost approaches grunge music in its lack of development. Their next album, The Bends (1995), was a huge step forward with many (but not all) of the tracks showing their abilities at full power. OK Computer (1997) was the first in their unbroken string of five straight masterpieces, culminating in 2007's In Rainbows. The primary factor that led to these accomplishments was their growth as arrangers. In my post of June 25, I wrote about their songwriting process, which I learned about from a New Yorker article by Alex Ross entitled "The Searchers", the main point here being that their method of working requires that each member of the group be entirely responsible for creating his own parts, and in a band that features three guitarists, and has made two albums largely dominated by electronic instrumentation (Kid A and Amnesiac), that means creativity was (and is) required. More tomorrow. (Suggested listening: "I Might Be Wrong", "Scatterbrain", "Reckoner")

Some people argue that Radiohead is the most important rock act in the last twenty years. Peter Gabriel, for one, has said something to that effect. I would concur. There are many reasons to be fascinated by this band, and I will be writing about a lot of them as we go along. But the most important quality of their music is rarely discussed: the way it is written. (As a matter of fact, the largest determining factor for the way any music sounds is the way it is written.) Rarely in rock do artists make large strides in compositional technique. This group did.
The evolution of their music is easy to hear if one listens to their albums chronologically. The breakthrough album (for this listener anyway) was their 1997 release, OK Computer. On the first listen, it is almost immediately clear that there is something very different happening on this entire recording, and it all stems from the process that the music went through as it was being composed. (I recommend Alex Ross' August 20, 2001 article for The New Yorker, entitled "The Searchers: Radiohead's Unquiet Revolution" for a lengthier discussion of this process.) Essentially, the first drafts of the songs are written and introduced to the band by Thom Yorke. They are then revamped by Jonny Greenwood (an accomplished classical composer as well as one of the band's guitarists), and then each member of the band is given the responsibility of writing his own part. It is not uncommon for the band to work on a song for over a year before recording a final version, which is very rare in pop or rock music. The result is music that is both unified and varied. Virtually every one of their songs is an individual creation of great originality and depth.
It's my contention that this way of working has shown a way forward for rock music, because it is based on the concept of counterpoint, rather than building through chord progressions. More on this tomorrow. Suggested listening: "Paranoid Android", "Sail to the Moon", "Weird Fishes".