Hail to the Thief

Untitled

Hail to the Thief, or "The Gloaming" as it is subtitled, is the sixth studio album by English rock band Radiohead, released on June 9 2003 in the United Kingdom and June 10 in the United States and Canada.

After two Radiohead albums that mined a distinctive groove - with heavily processed vocals, the influence of experimental electronics and jazz, and less guitar - Hail to the Thief was seen as a slight return to rock music, drawing its sound from every era of the band's existence. Preceded by the single "There There", the album reached #1 on the UK charts, and met with modest but worldwide commercial success. It also received mixed but mostly positive notices from critics.

Radiohead previewed songs live for audiences in Portugal and Spain in 2002, then recorded the bulk of the record in two weeks in Los Angeles with their longtime producer Nigel Godrich. The band described Hail to the Thief as an effort to achieve a more "swaggering" sound, a contrast with the marathon studio recording sessions for previous albums. At 14 songs and nearly an hour, the album is also the band's longest.

The album is dedicated to "Patrick and Tamir and a future worth having". Patrick and Tamir are sons of Phil Selway and Jonny Greenwood, respectively, born since the release of Amnesiac.

Musical style and reception

Radiohead's previous two albums, Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), had met with notably polarizing reactions both from fans and the music press. Some hailed the albums as masterpieces, particularly Kid A. Others criticized the diverse but largely electronic music of these records for being pretentious, too abstract, or lacking the guitar hooks and heart-on-sleeve songwriting of earlier records such as The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997).

Hail to the Thief featured more conventional use of guitar than the band's previous two albums, and more piano than any Radiohead album to date (piano is heard in at least five songs), but also makes use of electronic beats and samples. Band members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, in addition to guitar and vocals, are both credited with playing "laptop" on the album, a reference to their sonic manipulations with software programmes such as Cubase, Max/MSP and ProTools. In addition, Greenwood on Hail to the Thief continued to employ the Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument he first used on Kid A and Amnesiac. A range of musical influences were cited by the band on the record, including The Beatles, Neil Young, OutKast, Can, Bob Dylan, Modeselektor, Charles Mingus, The Rolling Stones, Clinic, Krzysztof Penderecki and Stephen Malkmus.

An example of the album's musical blend can be found in its opening track and third single "2+2=5", a rock song where the sound of a guitar being plugged into an amplifier is followed by a drum machine rhythm. The studio version of the first single "There There" also makes use of processed drums, replaced by live drums as the song progresses. According to the band, "There There" was heavily influenced by the German "Krautrock" band Can, which experimented with electronic music in the 1970s.

In interviews Radiohead members described their attempts to record in a "live" style on Hail to the Thief, not so much to capture the sound of their live concerts, but to achieve more energy and spontaneity without overdubbing. They explained that the electronics heard in songs such as "Sit Down. Stand Up." were not added later, but mostly performed in the same room at the same time as the piano, guitar and vocal parts. "On tour in 2001 in America, I think we learned to swagger as a band," Ed O'Brien said. "We wanted to capture that on record. We also didn't want to spend too long in the studio."

Nevertheless, the album contains overdubs and manipulations of Thom Yorke's voice, as with previous albums. Coproducer Nigel Godrich and engineer Darrell Thorp were honored with Grammy Awards for their work on Hail to the Thief, but the production has also received criticism. The album's quick recording process was "an experiment" according to Yorke in 2006, and also a compromise so that band members could spend more time with their families (most members had children by this time) and to protect against the tension of previous recording sessions. Ed O'Brien said, "This is the first album where, at the end of making it, we haven't wanted to kill each other."

Given the controversial nature of Radiohead's post-OK Computer work, fan and critical reaction was typically mixed but tended towards the positive. Neil McCormick, writing in the Daily Telegraph, called it "Radiohead firing on all cylinders, a major work by major artists at the height of their powers", and the record performed typically well in magazines' end-of-year lists, especially in the United States. It was the fifth straight Radiohead release to be nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. Unswayed, the NME's James Oldham saw it as "a good rather than great record" and Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called it "neither startlingly different and fresh nor packed with the sort of anthemic songs that once made them the world's biggest band".

Title and lyrics

The title of the album is considered by some to be a reference to an anti-Bush chant (itself a play on "Hail to the Chief," a march played to announce the arrival of the President of the United States) that was used by activists during the controversy surrounding the 2000 US presidential election. However, the band has emphasised the wider political context of the slogan, citing its use during the 1888 American election. In the June 2003 issue of Spin Magazine, Thom Yorke was quoted as saying "If the motivation for naming our album had been based solely on the [current] U.S. election, I'd find that to be pretty shallow". The album's subtitle was also explained by Yorke: "[The Gloaming] is the imminent sense of moving into the dark ages again. The rise of all this right-wing bigotry, stupidity, fear and ignorance".

Describing influences on his lyrics at the time, Thom Yorke cited Dante, Thomas Pynchon and George Orwell. Yorke described his songwriting process on Hail to the Thief as only unintentionally political, that he didn't seek to make a statement but couldn't help being influenced by current events. Yorke said he had been listening to the radio frequently in late 2001, after September 11, the "War on Terrorism" and the war in Afghanistan, and noting down common phrases he heard, which went into his lyrics. Yorke said the song "Sail to the Moon" was written for his son Noah, born in 2001; the song ends with the lyrics, "maybe you'll be president, but know right from wrong / and in a flood you'll build an ark / and sail us to the moon". Yorke said having children increased his responsibility and commitment to speaking out against what he viewed as injustices that could affect the lives of future generations.

Released in June 2003, the album came out only three months after the invasion of Iraq by the the US and UK coalition. Many took its title and certain lyrics as a response to the Iraq war, which the band had publicly opposed (as participants in ANSWER Coalition protests, and even by wearing Bush, Blair and Saddam Hussein masks in a December 2002 webcast to their fans). However, the album was recorded in autumn 2002, and most if not all of the songs of Hail to the Thief were written in mid-2002 or earlier.

The band had performed 12 out of its 14 songs at concerts in July and August 2002, with only "Backdrifts" and "The Gloaming" absent from the sets. Several of the songs, like "I Will" and "Sit Down Stand Up", dated from the 1990s, and the band originally worked on "Wolf at the Door" during sessions for Kid A, according to an Internet studio diary kept by Ed O'Brien (there is also speculation based on a page of lyrics posted on Radiohead's website, that "Sit Down Stand Up" may have been a part of these sessions, under the title "Innocents Civilian"). Some of the lyrics of "Myxomatosis" were taken from the chorus of the B-side song "Cuttooth" (released in August 2001) and other lyrics first appeared in the artwork by Yorke and Stanley Donwood for the "High & Dry" single in 1995.

Internet leak and sales

A version of the album that had not yet been mastered was leaked onto the Internet several months before it was officially released, possibly stolen from their studio. It was by no means the first album that suffered this fate, but it was one of the first unfinished albums to leak by a major artist. One of the earliest examples of a major music industry leak had been Radiohead's Kid A in 2000, though in that case it was the finished version of the album that surfaced. At the time of Kid A the band had been unbothered by the presence of their album on file sharing network Napster, but in 2003 they were upset because they felt their work was being heard in incomplete form, although fans noted only a few differences when the final CD appeared.

Regardless of the leak, the album had as much initial commercial success as Kid A and Amnesiac. Its US debut of #3 was below Kid As #1 and Amnesiac's #2, but the week was more competitive and the album actually sold more copies in its first week. Based on initial sales the album was described as a slight commercial "disappointment" in the UK, but still managed to debut at #1 there, like the band's past three albums.

As of August 2005, Hail To The Thief has sold 932,000 units in the US.

Alternate titles, special editions

Each song on Hail to the Thief has an official alternate title or subtitle, which is listed in smaller print on the back of the CD artwork. Some of the alternate titles are references to lyrics within the song, while others are phrases taken from elsewhere. The entire album has the alternate title of "The Gloaming", also the name of one of the songs on it. Thom Yorke said he was considering calling the album itself The Gloaming, but was ruled out by other band members for being too "prog rock". Both the album title, the titles of songs on it, and the alternate titles are listed with fullstops (periods) after them (for example, Hail to the Thief., "There there." and "Sit down. Stand up."). Within the lyrics booklet, each song's alternate title or subtitle is the one that appears in the heading above its lyrics, instead of its title. However, the alternate titles are rarely used otherwise, and even the band's setlists use the songs' main titles.

Hail to the Thief, like previous Radiohead albums, was also issued in vinyl. It was not issued in audio cassette form like previous albums.

As with Kid A and Amnesiac, the album was also released in a "special edition" version. This version has exactly the same music but features slightly different cover art by Stanley Donwood and Tchock, and a huge fold-out "map" or poster containing artwork similar to the cover. The poster was called a "roadmap", a reference by the band to the Bush Administration's ill-fated 2003 plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It also contains color-coded poems and other writings.

Trivia

• The album liner notes contain a thanks from Jonny Greenwood to Jeanne Loriod, a celebrated player of the Ondes Martenot who died shortly before the album came out. Greenwood, inspired by the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen, picked up the Ondes during the Kid A period, and played it on Hail to the Thief songs such as "Where I End and You Begin" and "We Suck Young Blood".

• In 2004, American teen pop star Hilary Duff said in an interview that her producer introduced her to Radiohead and had her sing through songs on Hail to the Thief as a warm-up for her voice, before recording.

Track listing

All tracks written by Radiohead.

1. "2 + 2 = 5 ^{(The Lukewarm.)}" – 3:19
2. "Sit Down. Stand Up. ^{(Snakes & Ladders.)}" – 4:19
3. "Sail to the Moon. ^{(Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky.)}" – 4:18
4. "Backdrifts. ^{(Honeymoon is Over.)}" – 5:22
5. "Go to Sleep. ^{(Little Man being Erased.)}" – 3:21
6. "Where I End and You Begin. ^{(The Sky is Falling in.)}" – 4:29
7. "We suck Young Blood. ^{(Your Time is up.)}" – 4:56
8. "The Gloaming. ^{(Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold.)}" – 3:32
9. "There there. ^{(The Boney King of Nowhere.)}" – 5:23
10. "I will. ^{(No man's Land.)}" – 1:59
11. "A Punchup at a Wedding. ^{(No no no no no no no no.)}" – 4:57
12. "Myxomatosis. ^{(Judge, Jury & Executioner.)}" – 3:52
13. "Scatterbrain. ^{(As Dead as Leaves.)}" – 3:21
14. "A Wolf at the Door. ^{(It Girl. Rag Doll.)}" – 3:23

• Note: Just like the album's title, each track receives a parenthetical subtitle. The lyrics in the booklet list only the parenthetical subtitles.

Band

The credits in the liner notes for Hail to the Thief indicate:

Thom Yorke	vocals, guitar, piano, laptop
Jonny Greenwood	guitar, analogue systems, ondes martenot, laptop, toy piano, glockenspiel
Ed O'Brien	guitar, harmony vocals, effects
Colin Greenwood	bass, string synth, sampler
Phil Selway	drums, percussion

Release

The album was released in various countries in June 2003.

Country	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
Japan	June 2 2003	Toshiba-EMI	CD	TOCP 66185
United Kingdom	June 9 2003	Parlophone	LP	5845431
			CD	5845432
Australia	June 9 2003	EMI	CD	5845442
United States	June 10 2003	Capitol	CD	CDP 7243 5 84543 2 1
United States	June 10 2003	Capitol	CD	CDP 7243 5 84805 2 8 (special edition)
Canada	June 10 2003	Parlophone	CD	7243 5 84544 2 0

External links

• Radiohead news from mtv.com