Radiohead - Hail to the Thief

I was a little bit surprised when I read in the Slate music club from last week which featured Radiohead's new album dissected via e-mail by Sasha Frere-Jones and Gerald Marzorati (NYT magazine) the following sentence by Frere-Jones:

On one hand I'd be very happy if this was true as I found the mixes which were leaked to the web absolutely perfect and could not imagine any improvement on them whatsoever.

On the other hand my feelings would be mixed as Radiohead's producer Nigel Godrich said that the tracks that leaked were the unmastered versions. If Frere-Jones is right Godrich has not been saying the truth (for marketing reasons?) which I find pretty inadequate and morally reproachable especially in the view of the album title.

So now I am not sure if I will buy the album anymore for two reasons. I was 100% sure before. But why should I buy an album which is identical to the mp3 versions and why should I buy an album of people who lie to me?

In the end I'll probably buy the album because I have the feeling it is the best album of the zero years yet. Before in my view that album was Amnesiac but Hail to the Thief seems to be even more of a miracle.

By the way this comes from someone who has kind of despised Radiohead and especially Thom Yorke's voice before. Interesting is this statement by Frere-Jones concerning the change of his voice:

P.S. The Slate e-mail exchange has been discussed here extensively on I Love Music!

hitherto, June 13, 2003 at 1:06:56 PM CEST

Some of the album versions are different, some aren't. Things I've noticed in no particular order:

2+2=5 - The beginning guitar twanging is longer, and you can hear Thom saying "that'll make a good start Johnny" in the background. Some of the mix has also been rejigged - the handclaps during the third section of the song ("You have not been paying attention") have been merged to the background, for example.

Sit Down, Stand Up - There's an extra section of electronic beats at the start.

I Will - The first few bars that were on the leaked version have been cut off.

A Punch Up At A Wedding - This song has been seriously altered, and much for the better. It's better paced, and some of Thom's gibbering between verses has been erased.

Myxomatosis - No huge changes to the structure, but it's been completely remastered since the leak, and has a much clearer sound.

Admittedly, that leaves 7 songs which are essentially unchanged, although almost all of them sound fresher and clearer than they did on the original leak. The only song which is identical, to my ears at least, is "There There", but Thom has been on record as saying that he was so happy when he heard the first mix of it that he sat down and cried, so that's not completely unexpected.

Personally, I bought the CD out of curiosity as to what it would sound like compared to the mixes, and also because I've always loved Stanley Donwood's artwork and packaging. The Special Edition (available in the UK at least) which is done like a map is beautiful.

I'm glad I've heard both "versions". It's a nice little insight into the production process of one of my favourite bands :)

One word of warning - HTTT seems to be copy-protected in all territories except the US. This means that you'll need a special application to hear it on a Windows PC, although my iBook played it with no trouble whatsoever, and I've already ripped it to my iPod.

... link

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