A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead

Best Tracks: Daydreaming, Identikit, True Love Waits
Genre: Ambient Rock
Year: 2016

I was just turning 13 when U2 forced Songs of Innocence into my iPod. It was one of the first records I was ever exposed to, along with a copy of Slippery When Wet I bought on iTunes. Even as a 13 year old kid, I exhausted this music pretty quickly. I started to associate the sound of alt rock with this kind of extravagant yet substanceless music. Music that would turn the volume up until you start headbanging to whatever crap lyrics and riffs they threw together. I sifted through all sorts of rock music until I found Pink Floyd. Soon after, I checked out Radiohead, hoping they would be similar. To my horror, I heard the same alt-rock textures I had grown to hate, and pretty quickly passed them off. If you asked me then, I would’ve told you Radiohead was the best alt rock band, but an alt rock band nonetheless. I know many alt rock fans will take issue with me clumping U2, Bon Jovi, and Radiohead together, but when all I knew was smooth jazz, Y2K pop, video game soundtracks, and Disco/R&B, these alt rock bands felt more similar than different.

Now look who comes crawling back… I’ve realised how extremely rare bands like Radiohead actually are. They are artists in every sense of the word. Every sound is perfectly performed and placed with intention. Nothing is sloppy or phoned-in. Genre doesn’t matter you’re dealing with music like this. Is it still rock? Is it ambient, electronic, or pop? Radiohead had stopped thinking like that by Kid A, and certainly forgot any concept of genre with A Moon Shaped Pool.

The alt rock drums and guitars are there, but the kick drum is almost silent and the guitars are whispering. You have to lean in to decipher Yorke’s lyrics, and when you do, you’re ambushed by an amorphous mob of strings, synths, and delays. A Moon Shaped Pool puts you in a trance of tension and release, of noise and silence. Listen to it with an open mind, and you’ll realize my words don’t do it justice. If the band’s sonic ingenuity wasn’t enough, A Moon Shaped Pool is also the most potently sad piece of music I’ve ever heard. Other Radiohead projects have both strong and weak moments, but in A Moon Shaped Pool, the weak moments are better described as a calm before the emotional storm. “Daydreaming” and “True Love Waits” can bring me to tears. It is a comforting feeling– hearing somebody sing as sad as humanly possible, and yet make it sound so beautiful. When the piano fades out at the end of A Moon Shaped Pool, it takes some of my grief with it.

This level of emotional power is extremely hard to pull off in art of any kind. Everything is in its right place, nothing takes me out of the moment. There are no weak lyrics, no lame solos, no sloppy grooves. A Moon Shaped Pool is exactly as it should be.