"A Moon Shaped Pool" is Further Proof that Radiohead is the Best Band in the World

Make your ears, heart, and mind happy with some good music

News alert, Radiohead released a new album yesterday. I bought it, but I waited until today to listen to it, and it is incredible, just like everything else Radiohead does. The record, "A Moon Shaped Pool" shows the growth and the same experimentation that the band has done since they busted out on the scene in the 90's. The record has rock, ethereal music, slow songs, touching songs, basically, it has everything we expect and love from Radiohead.

I know that there are other guys in the band, but Radiohead is really all about Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood. They are the two geniuses behind this wonderful band. Yorke is the eccentric, yet super talented front man that does a little bit of everything. Greenwood is the genius that writes and sonically puts all the music together. "A Moon Shaped Pool" has their separate genius on full display. Yoke croons and masterfully sings his way through the entire 11 song album. Greenwood's touch and elegance is all over the place in the music. Johnny Greenwood may be the greatest and most interesting person currently working in music. He is a true genius. You have to look no further than the second track on the album, "Daydreaming", to hear and realize how awesome Greenwood is. The song reminds me a lot of the slower stuff that was on "Kid A", but this song sounds a bit more grown up and put together with a purpose. I love the slower, weirder stuff on "Kid A", but it seems slapdash and spackled together. It's weird for the sake of weird. But on "Daydreaming", the weirdness and the etherealness has a real place in the song. It's structured and so well put together. The song has a base, verse, chorus, verse, but Greenwood has his trademark sound, and it is incredible.

The rest of the album is just as good. The opener, "Burn the Witch", is what a band like U2 strives to sound like, but they can't get there. Radiohead out does U2 on a song that sounds like U2. It's a great way to start out the new album. Yorke sings the hell out of it and the band sounds great. The third track, "Decks Dark" is currently my favorite song. It has acoustic guitar at the beginning, with slower singing, and it builds and only gets a lot better from there. Yorke absolutely crushes this song. It sounds like something off "The Bends", but it is better. They have some longer songs, a la stuff on "Kid A" or "OK Computer", like "Ful Stop", "The Numbers" and "Present Tense" that are great as well. As I've said, they sound grown up and mature on this record. You can tell they worked very, very hard on this record. These three songs are really good too. Sometimes slower, more musically charged Radiohead songs can feel a bit like a chore, but not on this record. They all fit in perfectly and they are perfectly placed on the record. They are all in the exact right spot. One of these will follow a faster or sweeter song and it's excellent placement. The last two tracks on the album are dynamite. Track 10, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief" has an incredibly long title and it is an incredibly awesome song. Yorke, once again, sings perfectly. He has that lower, almost scary type voice that gets louder and nicer as the tune goes on. The music accompanying him is just as good. There's great guitar, drums, bass and whatever the hell else Radiohead wants to do because they are the best. The song builds and builds and it is quite fantastic. The closer, "True Loves Waits" is absolutely beautiful and kind of sad. Yorke croons and moans and wails his way through the song and it is magical. His voice portrays love, hurt and pain so well. You can sympathize with him so easily. He makes you feel his hurt and his pain and we all can relate. The music is quiet, but just as important as Yorke's vocals. It is all so perfectly made and perfectly recorded by the perfect band.

Obviously, I love this record and I love this band. We all knew that something was coming when Radiohead went off all of social media one day before the announcement of the record, and I couldn't be happier with the outcome of their one day hiatus from social media. Radiohead can do no wrong, in my opinion. They are, and always will be, the perfect band. They are timeless. They make some of the best music that have ever been written and released. They are geniuses. And they know exactly how to market and promote themselves in the new digital age. They were one of the first, if not the first, band that let people decide what they wanted to pay for a record when they released "In Rainbows", and now, they can release a record on a Saturday, on Mother's Day, and it will be the talk of the internet for the next 7 days. They are awesome.

To all the people, the hipsters that is, complaining that Radiohead is "overrated" or "need to stop making music" or "old", shut up. This band is the best and we should be lucky that they are still creating some of the best music ever for us to listen to. The hipsters complaining about Radiohead are the same assholes that wear skinny jeans, collect vinyl, wax their mustaches and work in coffee houses that only do slow drip or French press coffee. These hipsters are the problem and they are the main ones complaining about a new Radiohead album. Get over yourself and start dressing more normal and stop judging me because I'm an unabashed fan of Radiohead. I will buy all their records, no matter how many they release and I'm sure I will love them all. These are the same people that still badmouth "The Simpsons" and complain about not having enough room to ride their unicycles because of people driving their cars. So, don't listen to the hipsters, listen to me and buy this new Radiohead album, it is awesome.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He may have a big bushy beard, but he is no hipster. Make sure you follow all of Ty's non-hipster thoughts on twitter @tykulik.