Are you only being nice because you want something?

Continuing my trip back through the 2006 album charts.

16/07/06 : The Eraser - Thom Yorke

Hold on - is this the one where Thom ditches the experimental whining and bleeping and goes full-on pop?  

No - because that's just never going to happen is it?  If you like Radiohead (particularly their later stuff) then I can't see you're going to mind this, but I'd struggle to say it pushes the envelope in any direction - part of me feels like I wanted him to do something that I could properly hate, but this just makes me shake my head ruefully and think "Oh Thom, what are you like?".

We're at #3 with a new entry this week, starting a ten week run which feels particularly generous from the 2006 record buying public.  The rest of the top five were Muse, The Kooks, The Zutons and Rihanna and the next highest new entry was Guillemots (#16) who I seem to recall I didn't mind, but I can't remember anything more about them.

Wikipedia has way more on the album than I expected (140 milliPeppers) but most of it is basically making the point that this is just Thom, OK?  It's definitely not Radiohead - it's like TOTALLY different (guys, if it makes you happy, then you tell yourself that).  The critics mostly liked it, but I'm sure he was infuriated by the number of them that went "would it have been better if Radiohead had been involved?".  It did surprisingly well globally, getting to #2 in the US - I do wonder how many of those copies had just the one listen though.

"Customers also listened to" Jonny Greenwood and Radiohead (lol).  I thought this was absolutely what I expected - it has some nice bleeps in places but it doesn't, for me, give me anything I feel I need or I wasn't expecting.  If ChatGPT was asked to record an album in the style of Thom Yorke, then this is what it would come up with - if that's what you wanted, then that's what you've got.

09/07/06 - In which an opinion is re-evaluated
23/07/06 - Peak Muse?