For The Radiohead Fan Who Has Everything

kater | October 12, 2007 2:30 am
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In Rainbows may be the Most Important Album Of 2007–or possibly the history of the world–but we should not forget the equally intriguing Corporate Love Breakdown: The Bluegrass Tribute to Radiohead, released in 2005 to tide people over between Hail To The Thief and the Most Important Album Of 2007, promising all of the band’s majesty in downhome form:

Corporate Love Breakdown: The Bluegrass Tribute To Radiohead is an epic ride through the band’s complex arrangements and lucid textures. Pulling songs from their entire catalog, Radiohead’s anthemic classics & more experimental moments are interpreted with guitar, mandolin and banjo. Corporate Love Breakdown: The Bluegrass Tribute To Radiohead is a great homage to the band and a delight for any bluegrass fan.

Well, is it? Of the three short sound clips on the album’s page, “No Surprises” is the most decipherable. “Fake Plastic Trees” sounds like the score to an inspirational movie set on a Kentucky horse farm, and the clip of the “The National Anthem” is kind of just a looped, muddy banjo strum with some weird percussion in the background. From my cursory listening, the failings of the clips seem to indicate that Radiohead’s “complex textures and “lucid textues” are a tad beyond the capabilities of a banjo. But it’s still probably more interesting than this.

Other albums in CMH Records’ Pickin’ On series for the indie rocker in your life already burnt out on the Most Important Album Of 2007:

Blue Safari: A Bluegrass Tribute to Air Fade To Bluegrass – The Bluegrass Tribute to Metallica Jamming: Bluegrass Celebrates Bob Marley Pickin’ On Lifehouse: Walk Away – The Bluegrass Tribute Pickin’ On Franz Ferdinand (A Tribute)

CMH Records [Official Site]

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